The real question is: How do you react? What do you do next? Evade responsibilities? Bury yourself in work? What do you do? All three of my novels take up that question, although none gives an answer.

The strange thing was, he wanted to like everyone. He just couldn't find a way to do it.

When I went to college I took a creative writing class and decided in a week to be a writer.

Well, I think it’s extraordinarily fun to write, and I look forward to it every day, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s easy. There’s a difference between the two. It’s fun in the way all worthwhile things are fun – there’s difficulty attached to it. I think that a writer has to accept a certain amount of frustration. It’s inherent in the task, and you have to simply persevere. It’s part of the definition of the work.

At one level you're condemned to the voice you have. But within those confines, you have a certain amount of freedom to range among your possible voices.

Everybody has a world, and that world is completely hidden until we begin to inquire. As soon as we do, that entire world opens to us and yields itself. And you see how full and complex it is.

I have relaxed into my persona as an author, although I used to fight that.