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"Writing had never become routine for him, but remained a constant surprise. He was always surprised at how much fun it was, once it all got moving. And never failed to be surprised at how bloody hard it was. It was like having an intense, frustrating love affair with a capricious, gorgeous, and often mean-spirited woman.He loved every moment of it."
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"This philistinism of interpretation is more rife in literature than in any other art. For decades now, literary critics have understood it to be their task to translate the elements of the poem or play or novel or story into something else. Sometimes a writer will be so uneasy before the naked power of his art that he will install within the work itself - albeit with a little shyness, a touch of the good taste of irony - the clear and explicit interpretation of it. Thomas Mann is an example of such an overcooperative author. In the case of more stubborn authors, the critic is only too happy to perform the job."

"Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination, and of the heart."

"A book is as private and consensual as sex."

"For the narrative to exist, so that it could be read and reread even if I was taken away. Stories outlive their writers all the time. We know plenty about Goethe and Charles Dickens from what they chose to tell, even though they have been dead for years."

"I haven't stuck to any formula. Most great writers stick to the same style, but I wanted to be more various."

"I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature."

"I suppose all fictional characters, especially in adventure or heroic fiction, at the end of the day are our dreams about ourselves. And sometimes they can be really revealing."

"When you think about the period in which Agatha Christie's crime novels were written, they are actually quite edgy for the time."
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"Shannon: Only the living suffered. Only they were riddled with guilt and regret and unanswered questions."

"New York had saved him, in a very real way. It had pushed and prodded him with its impatient and sharp fingers, reminding him on a daily basis during that jittery first year that it didn't really give a goddamn whether he sank or swam. He liked its selfishness and its generosity and its propensity for flipping the bird to the rest of the world."

"Family's the luck of the draw, Lena. What you make of yourself, because of or despite it, that's where the spine and heart come in."

"If you write in category, you write knowing there's a framework, there are reader expectations."

"You walked in, and the air changed. It gives you an advantage and you're enough of a challenge. I'm not trying to be a challenge. It's one of the things that makes you one."
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