Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.

Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood.

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a nam

“One false word, one extra word, and somebody's thinking about how they have to buy paper towels at the store.”

It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.