Sooner or later we all lose our loved ones. We all have to suffer, every last one of us.

It just so happened that for most of my life I've lived in the suburbs.

I really wanted to be a musician, but it turned out I had no sense of time.

I write about kids growing up, I write a lot about schools and parents, and all of my experiences with those things have been suburban experiences.

I know very few writers who outline fully before they start. It just doesn't seem possible to do, because so many things don't come out until you're absolutely knee-deep in the world.

Because, really, what was worse than lying wide-awake in the dark, watching your life drip away, one irreplaceable minute after another?

The interesting part about the writing process is that you can never see all the way to the end, not if something is happening over the course of a year and a half, or two years.