The past is the prism through which we see a great, great, great deal of ourselves; it's a useful prism. It doesn't mean that we're fascinated by the dead or that we're fascinated by things that are settled. It is just one place where we can go to understand ourselves in the present.

It's been my habit of mind, over these years, to understand that every situation in which human beings are involved can be turned on its head. Everything someone assures me to be true might not be. Every pillar of belief the world rests on may or may not be about to explode. Most things don't stay the way they are very long. Knowing this, however, has not made me cynical. Cynical means believing that good isn't possible; and I know for a fact that good is. I simply take nothing for granted and try to be ready for the change that's soon to come.

The art of living your life has a lot to do with getting over loss. The less the past haunts you, the better.

Things happen when people are not where they belong, and the world moves forward and back by that principle.

Happiness for me is getting to write about the most important things I know.

Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.

If loneliness is the disease, the story is the cure.