The novel is like a melancholy form. It's about some kind of disillusionment with the way things are versus the idea of how they could be or how they used to be.

I always wanted to write novels, even before I had read a lot of novels or had a very good idea of what they were.

Much as there are things about our own life stories that we can learn only from the systematic study of our dreams, there are things about the human condition that we can learn only from a systematic study of literature.

The one text that most changed my opinion on criticism was probably Freud's 'Interpretation of Dreams,' which I read in college.

It's important not to censor yourself and not to get upset or demoralized when you write bad stuff.

Everyone has a certain amount of bad writing to get out of their system.

No time you spend writing will be wasted - even if you write something that's bad.

I don't believe in being ashamed about not having read things.

I actually really wish I had written 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying' as an unreliably narrated novel that is also a self-help book.

Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time,' especially 'Time Regained,' made me think differently about what the novel is and can do. Then I forgot about it, then reread it and remembered again.