I won't read novels while writing novels.
With destruction comes renovation.
Power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed.
Look, don't just stare at the pages," I used to tell my students. "Become the characters. Live inside the book.
I like to be surprised. The best writing is when it defies me, when it starts going a different way than I had planned.
I think I write fiction for the opportunity to get beyond the limits of my own life.