“I cannot write any sort of story unless there is at least one character in it for whom I have physical desire.”

“A good fiction writer can write any character or any story that she wants to write. The importance, IMO, is a burning desire to tell that person's story.”

“The standard heroes and heroines of novels, are personages in whom I could never, from childhood upwards, take an interest, believe to be natural, or wish to imitate: were I obliged to copy these characters, I would simply -- not write at all. Were I obliged to copy any former novelist, even the greatest, even Scott, in anything , I would not write -- Unless I have something of my own to say, and a way of my own to say it in, I have no business to publish; unless I can look beyond the greatest Masters, and study Nature herself, I have no right to paint; unless I can have the courage to use the language of Truth in preference to the jargon of Conventionality, I ought to be silent.”

“I write - and read - for the sake of the story... My basic test for any story is: 'Would I want to meet these characters and observe these events in real life? Is this story an experience worth living through for its own sake? Is the pleasure of contemplating these characters an end itself?”

“There cannot be any 'story' without a fall - all stories are ultimately about the fall - at least not for human minds as we know them and have them.”

“I start with a tingle, a kind of feeling of the story I will write. Then come the characters, and they take over, they make the story.”