For almost anyone who chooses to be a writer, since so very few writers are able to learn a living from their work that is equivalent to the living e….

We know that people we love are both good and bad, but we expect strangers to be one or the other..

Lists of books we reread and books we can't finish tell more about us than about the relative worth of the books themselves..

Let the truth take care of itself, I decided. It's done all right on its own so far..

Storytelling is an ancient and honorable act. An essential role to play in the community or tribe. It's one that I embrace wholeheartedly and have be….

You go out into the world, you read everything you can read, you imitate the things you love, and you learn how hard it is to do. Eventually, you lea….

It was strange to stand there in front of the mirror and see myself like I was my own best friend, a kid wanted to hang with forever. This was a boy ….

The way I feel about every book is this: you don't finish it, you abandon it. All of my books have in some sense failed, otherwise I wouldn't write a….

There is a wonderful intelligence to the unconscious. It’s always smarter than we are..

I am not a ventriloquist..

What you believe matters, however. It’s all anyone has to act on. And since what you do is who you are, your actions define you. If you don’t believe….

They were gone and I missed them but even so I was very happy. For the rest of my life no matter where on this planet earth I went and no matter how ….

A couple of years I taught in graduate programs at NYU and Columbia, in the early eighties..

Loyalty is weird, it kicks in when you dont expect it and the people who deserve loyalty least seem to get it the most..

First of all it's usually women who run these higher primate sanctuaries, rarely men. They are white. They come from privileged backgrounds. They are….

If you are born black, it is better to be born now than in any other time in United States history. My grandson is black. His life is a different lif….

Choose your agent as carefully as you would choose your accountant or lawyer. Or dentist..

Motivations are too tangled and complex..

Although I still occasionally paint and draw, my life has now been shaped by my writing..

But really, it was reading that led me to writing. And in particular, reading the American classics like Twain who taught me at an early age that ord….

Through writing, through that process, they realize that they become more intelligent, and more honest and more imaginative than they can be in any o….