Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.

The thing about being a writer is that you never have to ask, 'Am I doing something that's worthwhile?' Because even if you fail at it, you know that it's worth doing.

I get very involved in the internal logic of sentences.

I have a theory... that someplace at the heart of most compelling stories is something that doesn't make sense.

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.

I didn't read a serious book until I was 19.

The ways in which things are superficially similar but also distinct is interesting to me.