"Of all the things you choose in life, you don't get to choose what your nightmares are. You don't pick them; they pick you."

"My old coach used to say that if you were in it for the match, if you were in it for the trophies, you were in it for the wrong reasons."

"I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin."

"Half my life is an act of revision."

"I was not born in a home where there were stereotypes. So that was very useful because it gave me the sense of possibilities, of flying, if I may say, of making my hopes and dreams a reality."

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."

"It's amazing that something only an atom thick can be an impenetrable barrier. You can have gas on one side and vacuum or liquid on the other, and with a wall only one atom thick, nothing would go through it."

"Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don't you love a cushioned seat in a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet?"