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

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.

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.

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.

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.

How you can argue with those who whip, stone and murder people because they wanted to live their life?

True love is actually very hard to understand... Everybody is looking for love, everybody is fighting for love... But because they can't bear to say it outloud, they express it through songs

Imposing limitations on yourself is cowardly because it protects you from having to try and perhaps failing.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

Parents know how to push your buttons because, hey, they sewed them on

I can't compare family to athletics.

I am addicted to the printed word, and my idea of a good time is a good book.

Why are you always smiling? What do you know?

I'm glad there are a lot of guitar players pursuing technique as diligently as they possibly can, because it leaves this whole other area open to people like me.

99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.