One Thing You Learn About The Novel

All My Books Are Made Up Of Other Books. They're All Deeply Structured On Other Fiction, Because I Was A Student In Fiction And I Didn't Have Much Actual Living To Draw On. I Suspect A Lot Of Other People's Novels Are Like That, Too, Though They Might Be Slower To Talk About It.

To A Novelist, Fluidity Is The Ultimate Good Omen; Suddenly Difficult Problems Are Simply Solved, Intractable Structural Knots Loosen Themselves, And You Come Upon The Key Without Even Recognizing That This Is What You Hold.

Novels Are Not About Expressing Yourself, They're About Something Beautiful, Funny, Clever And Organic. Self-expression ? Go And Ring A Bell In A Yard If You Want To Express Yourself.

Other People’s Words Are So Important. And Then Without Warning They Stop Being Important, Along With All Those Words Of Yours That Their Words Prompted You To Write. Much Of The Excitement Of A New Novel Lies In The Repudiation Of The One Written Before. Other People’s Words Are The Bridge You Use To Cross From Where You Were To Wherever You’re Going.

The Ideal Reader Cannot Sleep When Holding The Writer He Was Meant To Be With.