Every act of loving affirms the goodness of the lover just because he is capable of loving and being loved..

Revision is not the end of the creative process, but a new beginning. It's a chance not just to clean up and edit, but to open up and discover. The e….

We all sleep with the corpses of our dead lovers..

Pleasure is, after all, a luxury. It's love that's essential..

We read novels because we need stories; we crave them; we can’t live without telling them and hearing them. Stories are how we make sense of our live….

Writing a story, you understand, is not done by consensus. But we do learn from each other, and we remind ourselves how important this work we're doi….

You can't possibly conduct a proper affair without a lot of deliberating, scheming, speculating, and conniving. It's a delicate balance where the exc….

The facts, however, are unimportant in fiction. It's not the events of my life that I mine, but the emotional experiences I've had..

Fiction begins with the senses, and the senses go to work in a place..

I was reading for understanding. I wanted to do to a reader what Salinger did for me..

Every person in therapy has a love disorder..

I grew up in a house without many books. The books the nuns made us read in school didn't interest me..

A pure love is a selfless love, but can desire ever be selfless?.

Reading honest literature makes you love the world. Knowledge and understanding are love. Reading educates our feelings and enhances our sympathy. Wh….

I used to believe that love and happiness were synonymous. I was a fool. Love intensifies all emotions. Nothing is so painful o so sweet, so thrillin….

The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written..

You will feel discouraged; you will lose confidence in your abilities; you will be bored with the characters–and the only way to overcome these obsta….

Love is anticipation and memory, uncertainty and longing. It’s unreasonable, of course. Nothing begins with so much excitement and hope and pleasure ….

Love is always a surprise and you never get it right..

Novels are written, not wished into existence. You have to sit your ass in the chair or nothing gets done..

A lack of narrative structure, as you know, will cause anxiety..