"Praise and criticism seem to me to operate exactly on the same level. If you get a great review, it's really thrilling for about ten minutes. If you get a bad review, it's really crushing for ten minutes. Either way, you go on."

"I can write for any magazine now, in any voice. I can do it in two hours, I could do it in my sleep, it's like writing a grocery list."

"You see an absolutely brilliant film later, as an adult, and you walk out thinking about what to have for dinner. Whereas something like Jaws winds up having a huge effect on me. If only my parents had been taking me to Kurosawa films when I was eight, but no."

"Write because you love the art and the discipline, not because you're looking to sell something."

"I think people become consumed with selling a book when they need to be consumed with writing it."

"I don't write for an audience, I don't think whether my book will sell, I don't sell it before I finish writing it."

"Part of it is living in Tennessee. I'm so out of the loop. And as a person, I'm out of the loop. I'm oblivious by nature."

"I was very influenced by The Magic Mountain. It's a book that had a huge impact on me. I loved that as a shape for a novel: put a bunch of people in a beautiful place, give them all tuberculosis, make them all stay in a fur sleeping bag for several years and see what happens."

"People gave me such a bad time about wanting a baby. I didn't want a baby, and I still don't. I wanted a dog."