"So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives"

"Sister is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship"

"Broken relationships are a source of heavy heartbreak that seem to affect every family"

"The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance"

"Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold"

"Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed"

"No agent wants to see a book until he or she has decided whether to pursue the relationship"

"A person isn't who they are during the last conversation you had with them - they're who they've been throughout your whole relationship"

"I think in terms of family, in terms of relationships, in terms of work, competition to be the favorite, to be the noticed, to be the one - I don't know if it exists for all personalities, but I know for sure it did with me"

"Hence my obstinate emphasis on stylistic continuity from work to work rather than specific sibling relationships between the individual work and other members of its stylistic 'family' in the world outside"

"Homer's whole language, the language in which he lived, the language that he breathed, because he never saw it, or certainly those who formed his tradition never saw it, in characters on the pages. It was all on the tongue and in the ear"