I think I was always writing books that had very clear scenic structures. I do tend to write in scenes. I do tend to have a fair amount of dialogue. And I do tend to use stories that don't sprawl all over the place, that have a very sharp focus in terms of how they unfold in time.

I've been a little bit obsessed with religion, without being a religious person, for about a decade.

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.

My wife and I left New York when she got pregnant - we just thought it would be really hard to stay in the city.

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.

I find that even small changes sometimes jog you out of a mental rut.

She would be a mentor and an inspiration to girls like herself, the quiet ones who'd sleepwalked their way through high school, knowing nothing except that they couldn't possibly be happy with any of the choices the world seemed to be offering them.