"

Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing.

"

I always rewrite the very beginning of a novel. I rewrite the beginning as I write the ending, so I may spend part of morning writing the ending, the ...more

"

The denial of language is a suicidal one and we pay for it with our own lives.

"

For obviously the advantage for most writers is that no one sees them. The writer is invisible, which confers power.

"

For the writer, the serial killer is, abstractly, an analogue of the imagination's caprices and amorality; the sense that, no matter the dictates and ...more

"

Warum man schreibt, ist eine Frage die sich der Schriftsteller, völlig versunken in seine Arbeit, nicht stellt. Theorien sind das Gebiet derer, die ni...more

"

I should say, one of the things about being a widow or a widower, you really, really need a sense of humor, because everything's going to fall apart.

"

I haven't any formal schedule, but I love to write in the morning, before breakfast. Sometimes the writing goes so smoothly that I don't take a break ...more

"

I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card…and somehow the activity of w...more

"

I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate N...more

"

Anyone who teaches knows that you don't really experience a text until you've taught it, in loving detail, with an intelligent and responsive class.

"

When writing goes painfully, when it’s hideously difficult, and one feels real despair (ah, the despair, silly as it is, is real!)–then naturally one ...more

"

I believe that art is the highest expression of the human spirit. ~ I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participa...more

"

Fiction that adds up, that suggests a "logical consistency," or an explanation of some kind, is surely second-rate fiction; for the truth of life is i...more

"

The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt.