I want what I write to be deeply engaging and strange and true.

When I write characters, I need to hear their voice. As soon as I get them speaking, and I feel how they use language, I understand who they are and what they want.

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

I have to say that movies have as much impact on me as music. And that I learned as much about narrative from movies as I did from reading novels, how to arrange stories, how to juxtapose things.

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.

I like the challenge of creating a world with only sentences.

Even if we try to see people in our lives accurately, it is distorted by our own wants and prejudices and experiences.