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.

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

My mythic version of America is very much about parents and children, and in my experience, the suburban setting is where that particular drama plays out. Which isn't to say that there aren't parents and children in cities or on farms. I just don't know them.

The lesson you have to learn as novelist is how to be collaborative, and how to say, "I don't get to dictate this."

Once you'd broken through that invisible barrier that separates one person from another, you were connected forever, whether you liked it or not.

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.

To this day, she’s still sad. Because there’s not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it. I’m just saying that I took the pain that was inside of her at that moment and made it my own. And it didn’t hurt me at all.