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I don't understand why, in my work, writing is always so dangerous. It's very destructive. People who write books are destroyers.

The act of writing is a way of tricking yourself into revealing something that you would never consciously put into the world. Sometimes I'm shocked by the deeply personal things I've put into books without realizing it.

The odd thing about being a writer is you do tend to lose yourself in your books. Sometimes it seems like real life is flickering by and you're hardly a part of it. You remember the events in your books better than you remember the events that actually took place when you were writing them.

Writing is, by its nature, interior work. So being forced to be around people is a great gift for a novelist. You get to be reminded, daily, of how people think, how they speak, how they live; the things they worry about, the things they hope for, the things they fear.

Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time. And you have to love it in order to endure the solitude and the discipline.

Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.

Writing is a intensely personal activity. I can pen down my best thoughts when I'm alone. But when one is elevated into the stature of an author, you have to think about your books in terms of their business angle.

My theory is that sometimes writers write books because they want to read them, and they aren't there to be read. And I think that was true of me.

If I lose, then I have to accept that my way of writing books is not the way society says it's okay to write.

Writing is a way of getting at the things most people would prefer to escape. Writing takes me to the center of life. That's my invitation to my readers as well.