I always used to be an inside person, and now I'm an outside person.

That's the way I work. I get it all plotted in my mind, and then I write it down.

Our friendship was like our writing in some ways. It was the only thing that was interesting about our otherwise dull lives. We were better off when we were together. Together we were a small society of ambition and high ideals. We were tender and patient and kind. We were not like the world at all.

Updike and Bellow and Roth were my three favorite writers when I was young and throughout my life.

I don't believe in fate, as in, which I - as a Catholic, I think, sort of predestination. But I certainly believe in chance.

If anybody had shown me the paperwork for how my life was going to look in five years, I would have said, "No. That is not where I want to go."

You can't spend your whole life in front of a screen.