Quote

A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye.

When I'm writing fiction, I'm sort of interested by the fact that somehow or other I can have the feeling of actually seeing things through someone else's eyes.

When I write, it's like watching a movie in my head.

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

A writer is always, always searching, even against her will, against all her better instincts, for the thread of a story. Everything is fodder. Everything is fuel. You can feel it coming on like the tingling of a sore throat. The brain never stops struggling to reshape every experience and feeling into a coherent narrative.

There are so many different things out there trying to hook our attention, we writers have to be very selective and make certain that it is coming from inside out, not outside in.

That's why I love being a writer. My imagination can take me places I may never see except in my mind's eye.

I think there's a joy to be had in taking readers where they just don't want to go. If you are writing a properly realist novel, then don't blink. Why not see something for what it is and render it truthfully? I find it a good way of going about writing - not to blink.

The reader knows the writer better than he knows himself; but the writer's physical presence is light from a star that has moved on.

Part of being a fiction writer is being able to imagine how someone else is thinking and feeling. I think I've always been good at that.