I was envious of [Vincent] Van Gogh because I could never make a painting that beautiful! (Ridiculous, I know.) That was when the character of Ivy [Wilkes] began to take shape for me.

I knew the basic outline of the novel [The Dissemblers] and would write whatever scene of the book I felt particularly excited about at the time.

I lived in New Mexico until I was seventeen, and honestly I've been homesick ever since I left.

I do think that it is one of the eternal questions about art, though - is all art intrinsically selfish?

Does art play a role in the greater good of society, or does it just promote the satisfaction of the artist? I go back and forth on that question.

The motivation to paint seems more pure, or at least more personal, when the artist is doing it for herself.

I've spent many a day worrying that I will never be able to write again!

I am a tragically bad artist.

I did take one drawing class in school, but for this book I spent a lot of time talking to painters and asking them silly questions.

I read letters and journal entries by [Georgia] O'Keeffe (which were infinitely more useful than any critical analysis of her work).

The book [The Dissemblers] officially came out two weeks after my thirtieth birthday...am I still young?

Trying to see the face of the future? Know ye not that the future has infinite faces?

If peace came it would have to do so when there had been time to allow the hatred to grow out of people’s thinking.

I was born in the age of "alas".

American love — like coke in green glass bottles...they don't make it anymore.

Every organism requires an environment of friends, partly to shield it from violent changes, and partly to supply it with its wants.

There is a lot going on in high schools, and I think what we portray is fairly accurate

Few things are impossible in themselves: application to make them succeed fails us more often than the means.

I have always thought music as a way out of the ordinary mundane obligations of life.

All men's faces are true, whatsome'er their hands are.