"Human behavior in the midst of hardship caught my attention very early on, and my first stories were all pictures, no words."

"Love comes in far more shapes and sizes than what the family-values crowd condones, of course."

"Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love."

"I like to be surprised. The best writing is when it defies me, when it starts going a different way than I had planned."

"However far fiction writers stray from their own lives and experiences - and I stray pretty far from mine - I think, ultimately, that we may be writing what we need to write in some way, albeit unconsciously."

"I wanted to connect a modern story with a myth that I had read."

"When I was a kid, I was surrounded by girls: older sisters, older girl cousins just down the street... except for an older boy named Vito who threw rocks. Each year I would wish for a baby brother. It never happened."

"I love the most the students with troubled lives."

"Love stories are probably all I've ever been able to write or want to write."

"I think I write fiction for the opportunity to get beyond the limits of my own life."

"The roundness of life's design may be a sign that there is a presence beyond ourselves."

"I like to write first-person because I like to become the character I'm writing."