I was an English major in college, I went to a creative-writing program, and all my life, I really read and thought about fiction as a craft and an art form. I feel like I know a lot about it, and can trust my instincts.

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

Every minute we were together, I felt like I was wandering in the dark through a strange house, groping for a light switch. And then, whenever I found one and turned it on, the bulb was dead.

As for writing about temptation, there's no drama without temptation, and no novel without drama.

When I was writing 'The Abstinence Teacher,' I really tried to immerse myself in contemporary American evangelical culture.

It's not the cheating. It's the hunger for an alternative. The refusal to accept unhappiness.

Jill felt an emptiness open inside of her as she lifted her arm, a sense that something vital was being subtracted from her life. It was always like that when somebody you cared about went away, even when you knew it was inevitable, and it probably wasn't your fault.