Fiction Is Fun Because You Get To

You Can't Tell People How To Feel When They Read Your Work. You Can Only Hope To Connect.

You Can't Count On Notoriety Lasting Very Long, And There's No Way To Predict Whether Anyone Will Care About Your Books Or You In Three Years, Let Alone Ten Or Twenty.

I'd Read An Enormous Amount But Had Spent So Much Time In My Own Head That I Didn't Have Extensive Social Skills. Suddenly I Was In This World Where I Was Surrounded By These Incredibly Polished And Wealthy Kids Who Had Gone To Prep Schools, And I Felt Daunted By Them. I Don't Think People Were Aware Of How Full Of Anxiety I Was... For A Long Time I Felt Like I Was Living In A Place Where I Shouldn't Have Been.

I Always Worry That Knowing Too Much About A Novel Or A Story Early On In Writing Will Close It Down - It Feels Fatalistic In Some Way.

There Are All Kinds Of Strange Threads In American Culture, And Places Where Sympathy Is Extended And Places Where It Isn't, And Places Where Outrage Is Extended And Places Where It's Not. It's This Constantly Shifting Barrel Of Eels.