A good novel should be deeply unsettling - its satisfactions should come from its authenticity and its formal coherence. We must feel something crucial is at stake.

All roads lead to Wall Street, but we feel the effects of Wall Street on every street corner. Certainly in Syracuse, N.Y., where I live.

Getting an audience requires luck as well as talent. Some artists are private and shy. It costs them too much.

My teaching exists in a different part of my brain. However, I am lucky enough to teach very smart graduate students.

I don't have a lot of skills, but one thing I can do is, I can compartmentalize. I can make that a little world that I can go back to, so I can be a waitress, or I can be a teacher, and then go and work on my book.

The writer has to take risks and go somewhere full of mystery and possibility for the novel to deepen over the years it takes to write it.

People think it's suspect and self-indulgent to make art, and I don't think that's true. Some people think you should be busy making something that you can sell in the marketplace, and if nobody wants to buy it, it must be crap. And that's not true.