You Can't Find Peace By Avoiding Life.

Here's A Secret. Many Novelists, If They Are Pressed And If They Are Being Honest, Will Admit That The Finished Book Is A Rather Rough Translation Of The Book They'd Intended To Write.

Virginia Woolf's Great Novel, 'mrs. Dalloway,' Is The First Great Book I Ever Read. I Read It Almost By Accident When I Was In High School, When I Was 15 Years Old.

I Revise Constantly, As I Go Along And Then Again After I've Finished A First Draft. Few Of My Novels Contain A Single Sentence That Closely Resembles The Sentence I First Set Down. I Just Find That I Have To Keep Zapping And Zapping The English Language Until It Starts To Behave In Some Way That Vaguely Matches My Intentions.

But There Are Still The Hours, Aren't There? One And Then Another, And You Get Through That One And Then, My God, There's Another.

Insomniacs Know Better Than Anyone How It Would Be To Haunt A House.