I don't know what people think they're trying to do with literary novels, but they're trying to do something. They're trying to change the world, although that's so crazy. That's just delusional. But I recognize that it's crazy. It will be a little dinky change.

I notice that I only publish once every four years. It takes a couple of years to write a book and then, for me, for one reason or another, it usually takes about a year of sort of dicking around before I start up. I write a review or little magazine pieces and touring with the other book. But mainly it's just you're not ready, I'm not ready to start another. You're just not up for it.

It's my experience that you first feel the impulse to write in your chest. It's like falling in love, only more so. It feels like something criminal. It feels like unspeakably wild sex. So, think: When you feel the overpowering need to go out and find some unspeakably wild sex, do you rush to tell your mom about it?

Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version.

I try to write in the morning when I'm working on a novel. You get up, you have breakfast, you read the paper, you make a couple of phone calls, and then you sit on the couch and start. I use felt pen and white notepaper.

I play the same album over and over until the people in my house are ready to kill me.

I'm absolutely not an athletic person, but I used to be married to a runner. He would say that, especially in long-distance races, you could tell who was going to win and who wasn't, and if the person was present behind his eyes, if he was looking around and paying attention, you could be pretty sure he wasn't going to win. The person who was tranced out had a much better chance of winning. Because he or she had lost his or her governing self.