It's the rare book that's able to transport you in a way that a movie does.

Eventually everyone has to hit the dark side of life - Someone doesn't like you, someone doesn't like your work, someone doesn't love you back... people die. What we have is a generation who are super-confident and super-positive about things, but when the least bit of darkness enters their lives, they're paralyzed.

She laughs and looks out the window and I think for a minute that she's going to start to cry. I'm standing by the door and I look over at the Elvis Costello poster, at his eyes, watching her, watching us, and I try to get her away from it, so I tell her to come over here, sit down, and she thinks I want to hug her or something and she comes over to me and puts her arms around my back and says something like 'I think we've all lost some sort of feeling.

The images I had were of people being driven mad by living in the city. Images of parents who were so hungry and unfulfilled that they ate their own children.

Writing a novel that works is an extremely difficult thing to do. It requires a level of skill and dedication that always surprises me.

I like the idea of a writer being haunted by his own creation, especially if the writer resents the way the character defines him.

Rock 'n' roll. Deal with it.