It was all in my head and now all I had to do was figure out a way to get it down on paper.

I love a large cast of characters. That's the way life is: it's flooded with people and we keep them all straight.

Part of it is living in Tennessee. I'm so out of the loop. And as a person, I'm out of the loop. I'm oblivious by nature.

I love telling people what to read. It's my favorite thing in the world, to buy books and force books on people, take bad books away from people, give them better books.

Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.

Maybe the private life wasn't forever. Maybe everyone got it for a little while and then spent the rest of their lives remembering.

Society was nothing but a long, dull dinner party conversation in which one was forced to speak to one's partner on both the left and the right.