Chance is an element of life. What I try to do is study what I call the mechanics of reality as carefully as I can.

Stories without endings can do nothing but go on forever, and to be caught in one means that you must die before your part in it is played out.

I woke up one day and thought: I want to write a book about the history of my body. I could justify talking about my mother because it was in her body that my body began.

Let me tell you, there's no better medicine than a friendly card game for sloughing off the cares of a workaday world.

People say you have to travel to see the world. Sometimes I think that if you just stay in one place and keep your eyes open, you're going to see just about all that you can handle.

I think that's what turns young men and women into writers - the happiness you discover living in books.

It often happens that things are other than what they seem, and you can get yourself into trouble by jumping to conclusions.