I'm not a boy-writer, I've never been. I wanted to be a boy-writer when I was young, and I think that held me back. I wanted to be very clever, and funny, but I'm not very clever and not terribly funny. I've finally accepted my limits, and I do what I can do.

But lost chances are as much a part of life as chances taken, and a story cannot dwell on what might have been.

No book includes the entire world. It's limited. And so it doesn't seem like an aesthetic compromise to have to do that. There's so much other material to write about.

The mental state I'm in is completely different, but the act of trying to write is the same. I mean, in all instances you try to write good sentences. But in a novel you're free to do whatever you want, and in the autobiographical works you can't make things up.

Stories only happen to those who are able to tell them.

Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn't write, I would stop breathing.

...once you fell in love with her, you loved her until the day you died.