"To write a story that truly surprises the reader, turns the reader's (and the writer's) preconceived notions inside out, requires unconditional empathy—the courage to imagine not just your hero's virtues but also his flaws in all their grotesque and destructive truth."

"There are many factors that create a writer and the most significant is need.  I often joke, when talking at literary conferences and events, that if we, the writers, could choose to stop, we would.  For most of us, the need to make sense of and organize life through story, particularly its traumatic moments, was born many years before we penned our first title."

"Storytelling is how we—not just writers, everyone—practice our humanity, by trying to make sense of the world and our place in it."