The Internet and all its lures are much, much harder than anything I've ever encountered. If you're writing on a computer, the very instrument you're writing on is already tainted by the world out there in all its permutations.

There is no end to the promotion. There is no end to the possibilities. You can continue to promote a book for years, literally.

I never feel so alive as when I'm writing and the work is going well.

I do strongly identify with being Jewish. I was raised Orthodox and had a childhood complicated by the fact that my father was deeply religious and my mother was not.

There's something about urban life - you walk out your door, and you're in a steady of stream of life happening around you, and it's very easy to get caught up in that stream and simply kind of keep on moving.

If there's anything weirder than an introverted writer going to lots of social functions, it's an introverted writer being converted into an accidental guru.

Writing has been my window-flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence-my way of interpreting everything within my grasp.