It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself. This is hard to do alone.

I do my best work under pressure, so I’ll nick an artery, and my husband isn’t allowed to stanch the bleeding till I’ve banged out a chapter.

To a novelist, fluidity is the ultimate good omen; suddenly difficult problems are simply solved, intractable structural knots loosen themselves, and you come upon the key without even recognizing that this is what you hold.

The choices a writer makes within a tradition - preferring Milton to Moliere, caring for Barth over Barthelme - constitute some of the most personal information we can have about him.

It's difficult to tell the truth about how a book begins. The truth, as far as it can be presented to other people, is either wholly banal or too intimate.

It's gotten to a point where everybody is concerned about their rights and nobody is concerned about their duties.

An essential part of power is the freedom not to think too deeply