“And okay, fair enough, but there is this unwritten contract between author and reader and I think not ending your book kind of violates that contract.”

“Authors do not own books, readers do”

“Author's NoteThis is not so much an author's note as an author's reminder of what was printed in small type a few pages ago: This book is a work of fiction. I made it up.Neither novels or their readers benefit from attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species.I appreciate your cooperation in this matter.”

“I know that books seem like the ultimate thing that’s made by one person, but that’s not true… Every reading of a book is a collaboration between the reader and the writer who are making the story up together.”

“I want you to feel empowered to explore those questions without worrying that there is some secret answer somewhere resting with the author. The author does not have the answer. The author, despite what our culture tells us, is not the powerful one. The reader is the powerful one. The author scratches some symbols onto a page. The reader makes it live.”

“But I had to kill you, because the only other possible ending was us doing it, which I wasn't really emotionally ready to write about at ten.''Fair enough,' I say. 'But in the revision, I want to get some action.”

“A novel is a conversation between a reader and a writer.”