A family has its own rituals and its own superstitions.

At the end of the day, despite all the other great things that literature does in society and in a person's life, I think that we read to escape. And I think that place, more than anything, provides that escape quickly, if an author is engaged with the place.

death should be celebrated...when you put something in the ground you always know where it is

You never know what's going to happen in your life, and you never know what's going to happen in someone else's life either.

Everything necessary to understand my grandfather lies between two stories: the story of the tiger’s wife, and the story of the deathless man. These stories run like secret rivers through all the other stories of his life – of my grandfather’s days in the army; his great love for my grandmother; the years he spent as a surgeon and a tyrant of the University. One, which I learned after his death, is the story of how my grandfather became a man; the other, which he told to me, is of how he became a child again.

Come on, is your heart a sponge or a fist?

A lot of writers that I know have told me that the first book you write, you write about your childhood, whether you want to or not. It calls you back.