Novelists are basically inviting their readers to play a game of pretend. That's what fiction is: a game of pretend.

First one tells a lie; then one believes it; then one becomes it.

Art should be pretentious. The place to be sincere is in one's relationships.

I am certain that a novelist is someone who attributes a different reality-value to the characters and events of his story than to those of 'real' life. A novelist is someone who confuses his own life with that of his characters.

Novelists invent characters; poets invent themselves.

I now understand that writing fiction was a seed planted in my soul, though I would not be ready to grow that seed for a long time.