Charles Bock

I remember, even in college, reading Cliffs Notes about a book and thinking to myself, 'Geez, that sounds like a good book. I should probably read it.' ”

It wasn't a leap for me to go from not wanting to be in my body as a teenager, not wanting to be in my house, to thinking, 'What would happen if I had disappeared?' And then going from writing scenes of angry kids to thinking a little more about the parents and what their lives would be like. ”

I very much loved my late wife, Diana Joy Colbert, and I'd rather hold onto what I can. ”

Something I found while writing 'Alice & Oliver' - a book that is unquestionably a work of fiction, but which also borrows details from my own life - is that writing the truth often requires invention and imagination. ”

It's been wonderful to hear so many excited and intelligent responses to 'Beautiful Children,' not only from reviewers but also from the people coming out to my readings. ”

The literary world is filled with good and generous people. But then that's what writing is all about - empathy. ”

Writing books takes a long time, and one thing a writer must do is learn to live with his or her project. ”

I didn't have a lot of great jobs. I was a third-shift legal proofreader. I did office work for people where a friend might say, 'Hey, we need someone,' in his office, and then I will have a month or two weeks or whatever somewhere. I was - I taught fiction workshops. ”

I had a string of really awful jobs in Manhattan where my whole point was to do as little work in the world as possible so I could hoard time to write. ”