Time made me change. I gradually woke up to the realization that this is who I am, an author, a public figure, and I couldn't just hide in my study, ….

A literary achievement of the highest order..

There are things in this universe that we cannot control, and then there are the things we can. . . . Let fate, coincidence, and accident conspire; h….

What some people interpret as brooding melancholy is serenity. I don't feel required to grasp all the time..

At one level you're condemned to the voice you have. But within those confines, you have a certain amount of freedom to range among your possible voi….

None of those other things makes a difference. Love is the strongest thing in the world, you know. Nothing can touch it. Nothing comes close. If we l….

accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart..

Fiction is socially meaningful..

Writers shouldn’t underestimate the difficulty of what they’re doing, and they should treat it with great seriousness. You’re doing something that re….

Everybody has a world, and that world is completely hidden until we begin to inquire. As soon as we do, that entire world opens to us and yields itse….

When I went to college I took a creative writing class and decided in a week to be a writer..

The best advice on writing I've ever received is to take it seriously, because to do it well is all-consuming..

I grew up in Seattle, but I always knew I wanted to leave..

The strange thing was, he wanted to like everyone. He just couldn't find a way to do it..

I think you have an obligation to share what you know as a writer..

He didn't like very many people any more, or very many things either. He preferred not to be this way, but there it was, he was like that. His cynici….

Well, I think it’s extraordinarily fun to write, and I look forward to it every day, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s easy. There’s a difference be….

I write because something inner and unconscious forces me to. That is the first compulsion. The second is one of ethical and moral duty. I feel respo….

To persevere is always a reflection of the state of one's inner life, one's philosophy and one's perspective.

I have relaxed into my persona as an author, although I used to fight that..

Hemingway said the only way to write about a place is to leave it..