“If a novel's salient aim is virtue, I want to throw it against the wall.”

“Lie, illusion, deception, she said--was that it truly, the universal language we all speak?”

“A writer is dreamed and transfigured into being by spells, wishes, goldfish, silhouettes of trees, boxes of fairy tales dropped in the mud, uncles' and cousins' books, tablets and capsules and powd...”

“The novella will be called, I think, The Messiah of Stockholm. It takes place in Stockholm. Id better say no more, or the Muse will wipe it out.”

“Profound subject matter can be encompassed in small space - for proof, look at any sonnet by Shakespeare!”

“In books, as in life, there are no second chances. On second thought: it's the next work, still to be written, that offers the second chance.”

“To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.”

“art is risk made visible”

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“Sometimes two people have to fall apart, to realize how much they need to fall back together.”

“Good literature is one key to peace. When we stop reading each other, when we stop paying attention to each other's words and stories, we too easily oppose one another.”

“There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book tak...”