Readers will stay with an author, no matter what the variations in style and genre, as long as they get that sense of story, of character, of empathetic involvement.

Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled. Pleasure and pain. Sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled.

Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish.

Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy.

I've got a long list of books I wish I'd never written-and I've kept them all out of print for the past 20 years.

Her direct stare probed, as if the story of my life were written in my eyes in a few succinct lines that she could read.