In terms of why everything is different, each book is different than the one before because I'm so bored of what I just finished I want to work on something different. The next book becomes an antidote to what I did before.

The fallout from slavery is ongoing. I am not sure the issue of race in America will ever be completely solved.

Talking about New York is a way of talking about the world.

If I have three ideas and I'm working on one more than the others, that sort of tells me that I should work on that one.

I can't blame modern technology for my predilection for distraction, not after all the hours I've spent watching lost balloons disappear into the clouds. I did it before the Internet, and I'll do it after the apocalypse, assuming we still have helium and weak-gripped children.

Don’t go searching for a subject, let your subject find you. You can’t rush inspiration. … Once your subject finds you, it’s like falling in love. It will be your constant companion. Shadowing you, peeping in your windows, calling you at all hours to leave messages like, Only you understand me.

Pain could be killed. Sadness could not, but the drugs did shut its mouth for a time.