Novelist Quotes

I'd always read omnivorously and often thought much literary fiction is read by young men and women in their 20s as substitutes for experience.
It's perceived as an accolade to be published as a 'literary' writer, but, actually, it's pompous and it's fake. Literary fiction is often nothing more than a genre in itself.
People often express surprise that I'm not a psychopath. But it's not about what I want to do to other people, it's that I'm scared of what other people might do to me.
The fictional character with whom I most profoundly identified was Yossarian in Catch-22. Always did, still do.
The thematic bucket of vomit that I've been chained to since I was about 9 is the moral complexity of anti-heroism. I have always been interested in good people who do bad things for understandable reasons.
To kind of go through life not caring is a spectacular attribute. It's one I wish I had.
What I love about Indiana Jones is he always bites off slightly more than he can chew. The guy he's fighting is always slightly tougher than he is, but he just refuses to give up. And that's what makes Indiana Jones a hero: not his superpowers, but his refusal to be beaten.
Writing a novel is an intense and lonely business, but you have the reward at the end of a very direct dialogue between you and the reader.
Alice Munro is a particular kind of short story writer in that she writes long, character-driven short stories.
I can't listen to music when I'm writing. I like music best in a car or on the train.
I like it when someone gives me a new book of poetry by a poet I haven't read.
I think that the practice of writing every day was what made me remember that writing doesn't have anything to do with publishing books. It can be totally separate and private - a comforting thought.
I think the few writers who influenced me most in writing short stories are Alice Munro and Grace Paley. They're very different, and I can't do what they do, but reading them gives me hope that I'll learn something from them.
I think, in general, it's better not to respond to reviews of your work.
I'm not a big Woody Allen fan, but thought 'Husbands and Wives' was great.
I've always been a little bit more of a novel reader than a short story reader. I think the first books that made me want to be a writer were novels.
If somebody says your story is only published because you look nice in the photo, that maybe spurs you on to write.
It's usually easier for me to begin writing in a character's voice if that person is different from me in some significant way.
Most good fiction also has a character the writer seems to know more deeply than anyone can actually be known in life, but a few unusual writers can make something great without that.
Research for fiction is a funny thing: you go looking for one piece of information, and find something altogether different.
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