I do think I was trying to entertain the reader more than I was trying to purge myself.

Perhaps this is how you know you're doing the thing you're intended to: No matter how slow or how slight your progress, you never feel that it's a waste of time.

Probably I, like a lot of people, became a writer in imitation of or in homage to the books I enjoyed. When you're so captivated by something, you think, could I do that? Hmm, let me try

We all make mistakes, don't we? But if you can't forgive yourself, you'll always be an exile in your own life.

People who think my books are autobiographical, which they're not, credit me with having a much better memory than I do. I do, however, have a powerful imagination

I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating

We have to make mistakes, its how we learn compassion for others

I always worried someone would notice me, and then when no one did, I felt lonely.

Obviously the bar is much higher now for a behavior to be scandalous. Social media has really changed the way people live. It's not a new impulse; it's just being enacted in a new way.

I don't think it's shameful to admit that some days your time can be better spent reading than writing.

I have this theory that the likeability question comes up so much more with female characters created by female authors than it does with male characters and male authors

We are not poor. We just don't have any money!

Conformity begins the moment you ignore how you feel for acceptance.

Uncle Joe pulled the L.E.F. from his head and his side arm from his hip.... “We don’t have five minutes.

Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercised your freedom of thought.

Yet civil rights issues are very much on the front burner in South Carolina between the Black Lives Matter movement and police shootings.

So she was on her own, Kate thought, and instilled all the friendly helpfulness she could into her next question. “Excuse me, but are you the bad company young Mr. Scott has got into?

I must like my profession, since I can hardly distinguish myself from it.

I think probably Australians have just a little more taste than most people.

At first Babel longed for the use of just two words: Yes and No. But he knew that just to utter a single word would be to destroy the delicate fluency of silence.

And if there's any hope for America, it lies in a revolution, and if there's any hope for a revolution in America, it lies in getting Elvis Presley to become Che Guevara.