“I have trouble describing my own style, since it's sort of like describing my own eye color or something.”
“I love all the arts - so museums, theatre, music, walks near trees or by the ocean, time with people, psychological readings.”
“I love food. I'm not a great cook, but I love to cook, and I like how different it is from writing.”
“Language is the ticket to plot and character, after all, because both are built out of language.”
“Large meadows are lovely for picnics and romping, but they are for the lighter feelings. Meadows do not make me want to write.”
“At readings, audience members sometimes ask if I keep writing past the two hours if I'm on a roll, but I don't. I figure that if I'm on a roll, it's partially because I know I'm about to stop.”
“For me, even in my first book, the pleasures of writing anything magical is that it has to be physical. It has to be grounded and very much in this world. Then, I get to play with all the consequences of this new thing.”
“I developed a prejudice in high school that it was all going to be boring. That kind of teenage, why-do-I-have-to-read-these-goddamn-classics feeling. And then you discover that the classics are classics because they're lively. They don't stick around because they're boring. If they're boring, they go away.”
“I did plays in college, and I have half of a play. But I'm kind of stuck. I keep revisiting it so maybe it will move somewhere. There's something about plays where you can feel that sense of artifice at any moment.”
“I don't eschew autobiographical writing, but I'm not interested in mine to be so straightforward. The things that tend to move me the most are often those that I have to figure out its meaning for myself. The human being's ability to make a metaphor to describe a human experience is just really cool.”