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I have to often read the same sentence over and over before I understand it. And I have to convince myself that what I'm reading is so enjoyable and so exciting and so good for me that it's worth the effort.

It took me years to understand that words are often as important as experience, because words make experience last.

A lot of times you get people writing wonderful sentences and paragraphs, and they fall in love with their prose style, but the stories really aren't that terrific.

The writing that feels the best to me, I experience sometimes, is a kind of weirdly deep listening - like, it feels like if you just listen hard enough, the next sentence will tell you what it needs to be.

What I read, I read thoroughly and retain almost all of it.

For me, writing is like being taken on a walk by a footnote: It's amazing where you end up.

Good writing is good writing, and I'm so happy when I read it.

I'm supremely grateful and seriously pleased that readers enjoy my words.

I do feel that if you can write one good sentence and then another good sentence and then another, you end up with a good story.