If you start looking at movies on a moral level - "I don't like that, that hurts, that's mean, that's bad" - then I don't even want to talk to you. Or like, someone that says "I don't like science-fiction movies," or "I don't want to sit through a Western," or "I don't like violence in movies," then I completely tune out.

Price. You're priceless.

What do you do?' she asks, holding out the vest. 'What do you do?' 'What do you do?' she asks, her voice shaking. 'Don't ask me, please. Okay, Clay?' 'Why not?' She sits on the mattress after I get up. Muriel screams. 'Because... I don't know,' she sighs. I look at her and don't feel anything and walk out with my vest.

Every book for me is an exorcism in some way or another, working through my feelings at the time.

But this was what happened when you didn't want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you.

I've never written an autobiographical novel in my life. I've never touched upon my life. I've never written a single scene that I can say took place.

I convinced myself I hadn't seen anything, ... I had done this many times before ... I was adept at erasing reality.