The novel leads you places that you never could have gotten to otherwise.

I read Carver. Julio Cortázar. Amis's essays. Baldwin. Lorrie Moore. Capote. Saramago. Larkin. Wodehouse. Anything, anything at all, that doesn't sound like me.

In a whisper he began begging for—and, as the sun set, received—the concession people always beg for: a little more time.

Sometimes I think my whole professional life has been based on this hunch I had, early on, that many people feel just as muddled as I do, and might be happy to tag along with me on this search for clarity, for precision. I love that aspect of writing. Nothing makes me happier than to hear a reader say: that’s just what I’ve always felt, but you said it clearly.

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.

Make sure the lubricant is unscented. Don't join fashionable 'schools of thought.' Read everything.

Learning how to be a good reader is what makes you a writer.