I've never written nearly as much about place as people seem to think I do. I just write about class.

You use simple brushstrokes in a screenplay for things over which you would take much greater pains in a novel.

... Baggott enjoys living on the knife edge between hilarity and heartbreak and that makes her a writer after my own heart.

By ignoring a lot of American culture you can write more interesting stories. Unfortunately, if you were writing about America as it is, you'd be writing about a lot of people sitting in front of television sets.

They stayed, many of them, because staying was easier and less scary than leaving.

You just kind of have faith. If that sounds kind of mystical, it's because I really don't know how it works, but I trust that it does. I try to write the way I read, in order to find out what happens next.

Have you ever noticed that when people use the expression 'I have to say', what follows usually needn't be said?