I think most writers have to have a practice of writing. For me it is very early in the morning. I try to make it a separate world from the rest of my life.

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.

I try to write about how we live today, how we use language, technology, our bodies.

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

Although a great restaurant experience must include great food, a bad restaurant experience can be achieved through bad service alone. Ideally, service is invisible. You notice it only when something goes wrong.

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.

Even a documentary portrait of a person that tries to be very accurate is shaped by the filmmaker in so many ways.