It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.

Truth, at the wrong time, can be dangerous.

You're getting everyone's point of view at the same time, which, for me, is the perfect state for a novel: a cubist state, the cubist novel.

I'm a Canadian citizen. But I always want to feel at home in Sri Lanka. I'm a member of both countries.

You don't want to write your own opinion, you don't want to just represent yourself, but represent yourself through someone else.

As a writer, one is busy with archaeology.

I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.

The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human. Meander if you want to get to town.

When you're writing, it's as if you're within a kind of closed world.

You want to suggest something new, but at the same time, resolve the drama of the action in the novel.

I see the poem or the novel ending with an open door.

In the book the relationship with Katharine and Almasy is sort of only in the patient's mind.

Once I've discovered the story, I might restructure it, maybe move things around, set up a clue that something is going to happen later, but that happens much later in an editorial capacity.

Research can be a big clunker. It's difficult to know how you can make the historical light.

It's an odd state to be in, blowing the whistle on your home country.

The past is still, for us, a place that is not safely settled.

I don't have a plan for a story when I sit down to write. I would get quite bored carrying it out.

The last three books are much more a case of a moment of history, what happened almost by accident or coincidence, like being in the same elevator or lifeboat.

It's a discovery of a story when I write a book, a case of inching ahead on each page and discovering what's beyond in the darkness, beyond where you're writing.

A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch.

It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.

It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.

I don't see novels ending with any real sense of closure.

That's Anil's path. She grows up in Sri Lanka, goes and gets educated abroad, and through fate or chance gets brought back by the Human Rights Commission to investigate war crimes.

Right now, I have no idea what I will write or if I will write again.

To write about someone like myself would be very limiting.

It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.

It doubles your perception to write from the point of view of someone youre not.

A love story is not about those who lost their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing—not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.

For the first forty days a child is given dreams of previous lives. Journeys, winding paths, a hundred small lessons and then the past is erased.

If in the after life there is not music, we will have to import it.

I like playing complex, interesting characters. Sometimes I don't think there's much of a strong line between right and wrong for a character. Every character is somewhere on a moral spectrum.

Keeping kids safe is sometimes a delusion. The world is a perilous place. Sometimes the kitchen is a perilous place.

I met Patti LuPone and Elaine Paige in a party. I didn't speak too much with Patti, but she was lovely with me.

A Grandmother thinks of her grandchildren day and night even when they are not with her.She will always love them more than anyone would understand.

I want to feel good, I want to feel proud, I want to feel that I give someone enough and that I get enough.

I got my boobs done because I wanted to even out my lower half, and I thought that would take the focus away from my hips.

There are people who will appreciate what I've done, and there will be people who will criticize me. Ultimately history will have the final say.

I thank God tonight for freedom - those who bought and paid for it with their lives in the past - those who will protect it in the present and defend it in the future.

It's all right; it's not so much fun any more.

I think that Vietnam, many of us who served in Vietnam thought that was very wasteful, and to what end? To what end? What were we really there for? What were we really fighting for?

My children - in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.

The chance to be both artistically appreciated and commercially appreciated... That's what you hope for.

I've been hearing this since I first joined the Reds organization, that I'm going to be the next this or that. It's tough on a young player coming up. You show some positive things and everybody jumps on that and says you should be the next Willie Mays.

If you set your story in Rome, Ireland or Sheboygan, for that matter, go there. If you're broke, set it in the town where you live, or where you grew up.

Influence is our inner ability to lift people up to our perspective.

When I came out, I said, 'I'm going to be a proud gay artist.' I'm not going to be Melissa Etheridge. But she's a goddess!

Mystery is the basic element of all works of art.

Yeah, what happened was Universal wanted one of the characters to be nice so they chose me so there was a scene where the girl was tied to the bed and I let her go.