There's a perception that novels can't usually allow for your kind of absolute attention to detail.

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 still easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure faith, on the globe.

Nowadays, I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own.

You say you want to talk, But you don't . You stonewall me.

I like books that expose me to people unlike me and books that do battle against caricature or simplification. That, to me, is the heroic in fiction.

She did what girls generally do when they don't feel the part: she dressed it instead.