All Quotes

It might be useful to distinguish between pleasure and joy. But maybe everybody does this very easily, all the time, and only I am confused. ”

Cambridge was a joy. Tediously. People reading books in a posh place. It was my fantasy. I loved it. I miss it still. ”

I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them; most writers groups moonlight as support groups for the kind of people who think that writing is therapeutic. Writing is the exact opposite of therapy. ”

Nowadays, I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own. ”

World makers, social network makers, ask one question first: 'How can I do it?' ”

All novels attempt to cut neural routes through the brain, to convince us that down this road the true future of the novel lies. ”

A lot of women, when they're young, feel they have very good friends, and find later on that friendship is complicated. It's easy to be friends when everyone's 18. ”

I'm most honest about writing when I'm talking to family or friends, not to newspapers. ”

It seems to me that we often commit ourselves wholly to something while knowing almost nothing concrete about it. Another word for that, I suppose, is 'faith.' ”

Without the balancing context of everyday life, all you have is the news, and news by its nature is generally bad. ”