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I do not just write, I write what I am. If there is a secret, perhaps that is it.

I never studied writing, but I'd always been a reader and had a secret fantasy about being a writer.

One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing.

There are so many ways of posturing that people associate with being a writer. They imagine you wearing a beret and drinking only red wine and being full of yourself, and so, for a long time, the way I felt about writing was too private. I felt it too important and didn't want to be teased about it. So I lied about it.

Writing, for me, was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.

Writing is something I've always done on the side. I thought that no one would be interested, so I kept it to myself.

I never thought it was unusual to write, and I've been writing or pretending to write since before I even started school.

I've been writing, in one way or another, for as long as I can remember.

I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.

I didn't start writing so that I could more deeply know myself. I was bored of myself, my life, my childhood, my hometown. I started writing as a way to know others, to get away from myself.