In many ways, being honest about 'Huckleberry Finn' goes right to the heart of whether we can be honest about our heritage and our identity as Americans.

Oh, that sound? I'm in the hot tub, reading a novel.

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.

Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.

I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn.

Even if my marriage is falling apart and my children are unhappy, there is still a part of me that says, 'God, this is fascinating!'

Take naps. Often new ideas come together when you are half asleep, but you have to train yourself to remember them.

Candy is my fuel. Ice cream, too.

But what truly horsey girls discover in the end is that boyfriends, husbands, children, and careers are the substitute-for horses

In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.

I'm a natural novelist. I'm interested in the person and the group, and how they mesh. And one of the ways I don't want them to mesh is for the person to be subsumed into the group.

What do you want? What are you willing to give up to get it? Writing requires you make sacrifices. Be prepared to work hard to be a writer.

She liked it dark when her soul felt black

If a man can't love you for who you are, he's not worth The Dior Gloss.

I am a fading phantasmagoria. Time has left me in partial glory.

I found I could extinguish all human hope from my soul.

You'll have a large amount of people going into DNA.

The subject says: I see first many things which dance... then everything gradually becomes connected.

The old faiths light their candles all about, but burly Truth comes by and puts them out.

If you're playing the bad guy, you have to find what you like about them.

Not to engage in this pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of like men.