Fiction writing is a strange business when you think about it. You sit down and weave a network of lies to explore deeper truths.

So many bad things have happened to them that they can't trust the good things. They have to shove them away before someone can get it back.

I try to find something that applies not to me only, but to others, but don't try to control it too much. Essentially it is about what moves us, teaches us about ourselves.

The greatest griefs are silent.

Look, don't just stare at the pages," I used to tell my students. "Become the characters. Live inside the book.

Life is a whoopee cushion, a chair pulled away just as you were taking a seat.

Power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed.