"The characters I tend to write are going to be quixotic. They're going to fail a lot and fall a lot, but theres a romance in trying for honorable things."

"When it comes to the voice, if I'm consciously doing anything, I'm probably doing something wrong. ...There does need to come a time when you just have to let it fly."

"The properties of people and the properties of character have almost nothing to do with each other. They really don't. I know it seems like they do, because we look alike, but people don't speak in dialogue. Their lives don't unfold in a series of scenes that form a narrative arc. The rules of drama are very much separate from the properties of life. I think that's especially true of Shakespeare."

"How can you understand people if you're sitting in your room all day writing?"