History is the history of human behavior, and human behavior is the raw material of fiction. Most people recognize that novelists do research to get the facts right - how a glove factory works, for example, or how courtesans in… — Amy Waldman Copy Share Image
As a novelist, you deepen your characters as you go, adding layers. As a reporter, you try to peel layers away: observing subjects enough to get beneath the surface, re-questioning a source to find the facts. But these processes aren't… — Amy Waldman Copy Share Image
I'm kind of a mash-up of taste - Graham Greene and Jane Austen; W.G. Sebald and Alice Munro. — Amy Waldman Copy Share Image
Nothing in life gets dropped without someone else having to pick it up. — Amy Waldman Copy Share Image
I wasn't sitting around years ago thinking, 'I really want to write a novel. — Amy Waldman Copy Share Image
“She ate ramen noodles from the vending machine, their texture just a few molecular recombinations from the Styrofoam cup containing them.” — Amy Waldman Copy Share Image
My children, who are almost two: watching them develop has made me pay much closer attention to how we become who we are. — Amy Waldman Copy Share Image
In life, redemption was walking up the down escalator: stop to congratulate yourself, and back you slid. — Amy Waldman Copy Share Image
Perhaps this was the secret to being at peace: want nothing but what is given to you. — Amy Waldman Copy Share Image
My parents are aging and there are difficult issues. It's strange to have children at the beginning of life and parents nearing the end. — Amy Waldman Copy Share Image
Imagination, it turns out, is a great deal like reporting in your own head. Here is a paradox of fiction-writing. You are crafting something… — Amy Waldman Copy Share Image
“Don't succumb to the fear; don't mistake the absolutism of Khan's opposition for morality” — Amy Waldman Copy Share Image
