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The great break of my literary career was going to law school.

When I was 23 and about to go to law school, I thought I'd spend the summer writing a novel.

I don't know if I have a memory of not thinking I was a writer - it goes that far back. I went to law school because I didn't know how to earn a living otherwise. I tried to ignore the pull, but it wouldn't let me.

I always thought of myself as a kind of literary bureaucrat. And that was never going to be enough for me.

I chose to go to law school because I thought that someday, somehow I'd make a difference.

I worked my way through law school.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

Law became boring, but like every job I've done, it helped prepare me for a career in music.

I went to graduate school with zero expectation. I kind of backed into it. I wanted to go back to school because I felt gaps in my literary background. I studied mostly twentieth-century English literature in college, so I thought, 'Maybe I'll go back for my writing.'

I didn't go to law school to become a lawyer, per se - let's just say I was leaning in to some strong suggestions from my parents - but my nebulous goals of someday becoming a writer were just that, nebulous.