As I get ready to buy a new computer, I'm stunned at all the many micro drafts, of different chapters and scenes and whatnot, that litter the hard drive.

Each source that I read, I would look through the bibliography and the footnotes, and use that as a map for the next thing I would read.

Every now and then, you find a book that feels like it was keyed to your DNA.

Everyone would tell me they couldn't identify with sexual abuse. No one says they can't identify with the tales of the Greek gods and goddesses because they don't live on Mt. Olympus.

Writers aren't born, they're made - from practice, reading, and a lot of caffeine.

I have lived for a long time inside a series of coincidences that most people would find implausible in a novel.

PhD, MFA, self-taught - the only things you must have to become a writer are the stamina to continue and a wily, cagey heart in the face of extremity, failure, and success.

Whenever people say a coincidence in a novel is implausible, I think, Do I have a story for you.

I had a naiveté that I would remember the things that I had written already, but I was getting lost in the forest of my own ideas and having to find my way out.

The myth works to make the very real things people don't want to look at visible for them.

I grew up treating a life as a writer as a career in letters, one devoted to many kinds of writing. And so it seemed normal to study both fiction writing and the literary essay as an undergrad.

He flipped back the covers. “Come here, I want to show you something.”She raised a brow impishly, “You still have moves I haven’t seen? Impressive.

It's not enough, and so limiting, to teach the simplistic value of a designer's material wear. Give children the gift of values that will last far beyond [a] fad's temporal popularity.

It's all a matter of history. Brandy is no solace. Librium only lies me down like a dead snow queen. Yes! I am still the criminal.

Alas,we who wanted kindness, could not be kind ourselves.

Inspiration is for amateurs.

So he stalked her again. Love makes hunters of us all.

I love stretching myself musically.

Gifts are like hooks.

If it turns out that my best wasn't good enough, at least I won't look back and say that I was afraid to try; failure makes me work even harder.

If you allow dunya to own your heart, like the ocean that owns the boat, it will take over. You will sink down to the depths of the sea. You will touch the ocean floor.