I do have a sense of displacement as constant instability — the uninterrupted existence of everything that I love and care about is not guaranteed at all. I wait for catastrophes.

I want to make money, and I would like to have a lot of money, but I still believe that the only reason to write is that somehow it will make something or somebody better.

I actually didn't listen to the Beatles song 'Nowhere Man' when I was writing my book of the same name. What I listened to a lot was 'Abbey Road.' Its disjointedness and its readiness to confuse only to delight were inspiring to me.

I don't know the numbers, but roughly half of the people who came through Ellis Island returned home. They came here to make money, not to make history.

It's so internalized, the way your mind works in relation to anything - it's a process, but then it isn't. It's working all the time.

Nobody deserves death, yet everybody gets it.

I am a writer, which means I write stories, I write novels, and I would write poetry if I knew how to. I don't want to limit myself.