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

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.

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.

Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.

If you remain calm in the midst of great chaos, it is the surest guarantee that it will eventually subside.

Practice brings better results than prayer.

Burnout is a war that must be won on two fronts.

Emotions are like passing storms, and you have to remind yourself that it won't rain forever.

You cannot be driven by the polls. The polls change all the time; they're easily manipulated by whoever wants to ask those poll questions; they go up; they go down.

Winning doesn't mean my book is better than anyone else's. It means I'm very fortunate. And I should be very, very aware of that. And grateful.

My nationalism is as broad as my swadeshi, I want India's rise so that the whole world may benefit.

Paula, your retirement is the one that every athlete dreams.

If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good.