I tended to write the book in these bursts of two or three months at a time. So I would know, or at least feel securely, that for the next few months I was at least going to have a few hours a day.

For me, the process always has to be pretty intense. I could never write just two or three days a week. It had to be every day.

My favorite sports novel is End Zone by Delillo. It's such a great looking book too, the black cover with the football player on it. It's just a fantastic little book.

It remained an open question, how much sympathy love could stand.

Other things awaited. It was good to be young and to know it for once. So much unfolding to do.

Writers have the purity of their art and what they want to achieve with that, and that this purity is bound up with the messy material conditions of trying to make a living while doing that work.

... people loved to suffer, as long as the suffering made sense. Everybody suffered. The key was to choose the form of your suffering.