You have to keep recycling yourself.

If you died right now, how would you feel about your life?

Your folks are god, you love them and you want to make them happy but you still want to make up your own rules.

Who you are moment to moment is just a story.

If Marilyn Monroe was alive right now, what would she be doing?' Clawing at the roof of her coffin.

With the novels, I usually start from something in my own life that I can't resolve, so I turn it into a metaphor and for months or sometimes years I'll exhaust all of my emotional reaction to this issue by making it enormous on the page.

Every time I write something, I think, this is the most offensive thing I will ever write. But no. I always surprise myself.