I like the dark part of the night, after midnight and before four-thirty, when it's hollow, when ceilings are harder and farther away. Then I can breathe, and can think while others are sleeping, in a way can stop time, can have it so – this has always been my dream – so that while everyone else is frozen, I can work busily about them, doing whatever it is that needs to be done, like the elves who make the shoes while children sleep.

People are strange, but more than that, they're good. They're good first, then strange.

No one’s forcing you to do this. You willingly tie yourself to these leashes. And you willingly become utterly socially autistic. You no longer pick up on basic human communication clues. You’re at a table with three humans, all of whom are looking at you and trying to talk to you, and you’re staring at a screen, searching for strangers in Dubai.

There is travel and there are babies; everything else is drudgery and death.

I worked at magazines for over 10 years before I even thought of writing a book.

Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let’s not forget this.

There is no faith like the faith of a builder of homes in coastal Louisiana