Most contemporary fiction sucks. It's intellectually dishonest, often morally dishonest. It's cheap and easy. It pretends to be deep but is really quite shallow.

Don't come to New York until you've finished a book. It's too expensive. You'll never write anything. You'll spend all your time working to pay the rent.

We had the fun of being outlaws. But there's a whole generation now coming up with new gender identities. For this generation of kids who don't think that being gay is anything special, they might be more interesting than any of us.

Who cares what the state thinks about your relationship? They're giving you tax breaks and this and that - it's just nonsense. You want to live with somebody, then live with somebody. All that other stuff is just a way for the state monitoring and codifying certain activities and ostracizing others.

One night I had a dream and woke up and wrote down the dream. That was my first short story. The dream was a kind of fantasy of me getting revenge on my father.

It's nice to have something you think separates you from the mainstream and gives you perspective on that, but it can become very limiting at the same time if it's something you use to artificially define yourself.

Your past comes with you no matter where you go.