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

The effects of MFA programs, and the rise of creative writing instruction more generally, are far more diffuse than people think. Even if you're a writer who has avoided institutions your whole life, you're still going to be reading a lot of writers who have MFAs, and are affiliated with universities.

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.

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.

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

I play American football every Saturday, which I find calming.

Getting your foot in the door with some publishing people can be important when you're starting out as a writer, but it's also not enough to get you where you need to be.