The myth works to make the very real things people don't want to look at visible for them.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing consoles and comforts like certainty does.

You know I want to be a directos, but you could never truly see the movies in my head and that, Ed, is why we broke up.

My ambition really was, even as a child, to be a writer, a commentator, and a teacher, but a teacher of Talmud.

There's all the difference in the world between having something to say, and having to say something.

If you are advocating full retirement benefits starting at 60, my reaction is the system is already 31 percent underfinanced and can not afford what it's now doing, let alone such a policy change.

It is as easy to draw back a stone thrown with force from the hand, as to recall a word once spoken.

If your fans are listening to the music and they can relate to it, they'll relate to it a lot more if it comes from us.

Why were you even there?" Kami asked. "Were you following me home?" "Are you asking me if I was stalking you?" "Maybe," said Kami. "Were you?" "Yeah," said Jared. "Little bit.

My whole act is confession.