Writing became an obsessive compulsive habit but I had almost no money so I thought about being an urban firefighter and having lots of free time in which to write or becoming an English teacher and thinking about books and writers on a daily basis. That swayed me.

I made my drama teacher cry. I only took drama to get out of writing papers in English and the teacher was this thespian Broadway geek and here I was this Italian guy from Staten Island and I would put her in tears.

When I started writing full time I had not long stopped being a teacher and when at last I had a full day to write I would put music on and wonder to myself - am I allowed to do this? Then I thought: 'I am control of this and no one is telling me what I can do.'

I remember telling my creative writing teacher that you never want to have a journal because if you lose it then someone's going to know all your secrets. And then she stopped using a journal but I always write everything down... Anytime I travel I try and fill up notepads.

I was a writer. I just wasn't a very good one. I was lucky enough to have a playwriting teacher who told me that I'd be a better actor than I would a playwright.

As a teacher at Princeton I'm surrounded by people who work hard so I just make good use of my time. And I don't really think of it as work - writing a novel in one sense is a problem-solving exercise.

It is by teaching that we teach ourselves by relating that we observe by affirming that we examine by showing that we look by writing that we think by pumping that we draw water into the well.

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters seeing the world through their eyes.

I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long.

The writing of a melody is an emotional moment success doesn't make it easy.