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I think one of my better gifts as a writer is empathy.

Writing really evokes empathy in a way very few things can do.

You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer.

Literature sucks you into another psyche. So the creation of empathy necessarily influences how you'll behave to other people.

Fiction and essays can create empathy for the theoretical stranger.

When I'm writing from a character's viewpoint, in essence I become that character; I share their thoughts, I see the world through their eyes and try to feel everything they feel.

As authors, most - most authors, our art is portraying the human condition. Trying to show you what it's like to be somebody else, trying to make you feel for somebody else. That means you have to have a high degree of empathy.

The stories I love the most are where the author has a lot of empathy for everyone. The author loves their characters and takes their situations really seriously, and you feel like you're just dropped into a different world.

I feel in some ways I've had a difficult life. And it makes me the kind of writer I am, in what I value, what I respect, what I hold dear.

Although I'm not particularly troubled myself, I do have a lot of empathy for troubled characters.