Quote Category

But I now think what I was doing, in a completely unconscious way, was getting off the turf where my husband and I might be rivals. We were both working in fiction… so I look back and I see that I consciously vacated the contested ground.

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.

You can trust a Neil Simon script. Every dot. Every dash; that pause means something. He takes all the jokes out, practically.

There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

It’s not surprising to see in my own work, looking back, and in the work of some of my peers, an attention to family. It’s nice to write a book that does tend toward significance and meaning, and where else are you sure of finding it?

In France, for instance, one magazine writer was convinced that On The Road had been a huge influence on Lost Souls and was crushed to learn that I hadn’t read the one until after I’d written the other.

When I write I simply follow my heart. And my flights of fantasy. It is not done with a conscious effort. I’m continually inspired and write reflexively.

Some of the food in Liquor is food I’ve really eaten filtered through a veil of fiction.

In the book, America had already been weakened by bio terror plagues before waves of selfish violence took down the rest. But the real enemy was the kind of male human being who nurses fantasies of violent glory at the expense of his fellow citizens.