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People really want to believe that there is no fiction. I think they find it much easier to imagine that novelists are writing memoirs, writing about their lives, because it's difficult to conceive that there's a great imaginary life in which you can participate.

Fiction, at its best, is a radical act of intimacy. It seeks to join, to merge, to know deeply; and, as with intimacy, there is a way in which it cannot be faked.

I think one of the paradoxes of writing fiction is when people enjoy it, they want it to be real. So they look for connections.

Writing is such a solitary thing, so it's nice, when I'm discouraged, to see people still have such faith in fiction.

Most fiction comes from your experience.

One of the things that writing has taught me is that fiction has a life of its own. Fictional places are sometimes more real than the view from our bedroom window. Fictional people can sometimes become as close to us as our loved ones.

The interesting thing about fiction from a writer's standpoint is that the characters come to life within you. And yet who are they and where are they? They seem to have as much or more vitality and complexity as the people around you.

If you write fiction, you have to love your characters. It's like your family. You don't have to like them, but you have to love them.