Personal experience is the lightning of the soul; it transforms the heart in ways that leave the brain behind.

I don't really think of writing as a career. It's something that happened to me. By working harder than I knew it was possible to work, I have become passable at it.

All writers have strengths and weaknesses. I am terrified of being boring, so I write short, compressed stories that sometimes don't give a reader time to think about what they have read. I struggle to slow down.

The actual American childhood is less Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney than Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.

When Tolstoy wrote that all happy families are alike, what he meant was that there are no happy families.

I think 12-step programs really work, rehab really works, certain types of therapies and talking to other addicts really work. There are a lot of things that work - that isn't the problem. The problem is getting the addicts to say they're addicts. The problem is admitting it.

Dogs are great teachers. They are at home in the world. They live in the moment, and they force us to stay there with them. Dogs love us unconditionally, not for our bodies or bank accounts.