Most great books have been about striving in some sense. In a sense, money is the great topic of the novel. You couldn't necessarily say that about poetry.

Tall people have a real advantage in the world.

It's very hard right now to be a pro sports fan. The economics of this stuff is abysmal.

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.

Another older writer that had a huge influence on me is Chekhov. More contemporarily, it's hard to say.

A lot of my close friends had tolerantly washed their hands of the whole idea of me writing a book. They had said to themselves, "I don't know what he's doing."

Every dude in your high school wasn't striving to be the best poet because then he'd get all the girls, right? But you could imagine a society in which that were the case.