I'm a big Philip Roth fan. I think "American Pastoral" is the great American novel of the past 30 to 40 years. It's a novel about what happened in the 1960s, and I think America is still dealing with what happened then. It's devastatingly sad.

I think the real heroic teachers are the ones who work with kids, like my mom and my sister do.

I don't discount belief. I just discount most of the things that people believe in.

In the U.S., oddly, we have images of men as arrogant and aggressive.

I don't like watching people work if they're making art.

It's always like you write a poem when you can't really say what you're trying to say.

I'm a big Philip Roth fan. I think "American Pastoral" is the great American novel of the past 30 to 40 years. It's a novel about what happened in the 1960s, and I think America is still dealing with what happened then. It's devastatingly sad.