The hardest thing was learning to write. I was 13, and the only writing I had done was for Social Studies. It consisted of copying passages right out of the encyclopedia

I tell beginning readers to read a lot and write a lot. If you want to write a book, find a subject that's really worth the time and effort you'll put in.

Curing yourself of obsessive compulsive disorder by going to a strip club is pretty strange.

I've gotta keep life and computers separate, or else I'm gonna go mad.

What interests me is trying to catch the reflection of the human being on the page. I'm interested in how ordinary people live their lives

I am grateful to Stacy Schiff first of all because she can write a sentence-because she offers us her scholarship with wit, clarity, and grace. Once again, she has done what only the best writers can do: she has made the world new, again.

The combination of domesticity and wildness - that's a deep expression