It is no fun at all to have been writing a book for seven or so years, especially when you've never published anything before.

To my parents, writing seemed precarious and not the best idea.

The challenge for any fiction writer is that your job involves simply sitting at a desk for a very, very long time.

Poetry might be more about the eternal verities, the essence of the human soul, and - although it's reductive to say so - fiction has perhaps been more about the differences between the unconstrained world of the imagination and the realities you run into, day-to-day, when you're riding your donkey.

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

Somehow, you can achieve a directness in the novel that you can't get anywhere else.

I'm just kind of really interested in athletes as artists of a pretty serious variety and people who devote themselves to what they do in a really incredible way.