When I write new worlds, I work in layers, building and throwing out, and building anew.

As a person, I do ascribe to a lot of magical thinking myself.

In the end, fiction is the craft of telling truth through lies.

While writing, writers are living inside a character or characters, and when the book ekes into the world, writers are living inside the reader. That's more than connecting.

Amor animi arbitrio sumitu, non ponitur; we choose to love; we do not choose to cease loving.

Who, in the midst of passion, is vigilant against illness? Who listens to the reports of recently decimated populations in Spain, India, Bora Bora, when new lips, tongues and poems fill the world?

If there's a black cat that crosses the street in my path, I will turn around and walk 20 minutes out of my way to not cross it.

Depressing thought: my friends were the girls I ate lunch with, all buddies from kindergarten who knew one another so well we weren't sure if we even liked one another anymore.

Sometimes you have to let time carry you past your troubles.

I'm a private person, a shy person. Sometimes, reading for eleven hours straight feels to me like the perfect way to spend a day.

I love Twitter. It's like having a closet full of clever friends that you can visit twice a day, then shove back into the darkness when you're tired of them.

the worst thing, " he told me, "is bitterness, people end up sobitter.

The devil's weapon is an illusion of our imagination.

One effect of an individualistic culture that's poor at instilling mutual respect is that people jump more quickly to anger or violence.

there is this malign curse laid on dipsomaniacs. That they must absolutely have a drink: in order to feel strong enough to stop drinking.

If humanity is being swallowed by a modern primitivism, imagination might be the thing that saves us all.

I always try to think in curves.

I'd rather feel empathy for a character that's fictional, so it doesn't quite tie into personal experience as much.

I think the people who cast films tend to think of me in regard to strong women with integrity and a lot of it has been very good.

This is a great mind at work examining itself. This is where literature comes from.

How sublime to look down on the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet!