I honestly turned to writing because I didn't know what else to do, and because a friend had gently suggested it.

I think it's more important to concentrate on trying to be, simply, happy. Once you've known deep despair, you feel even more motivated to be as happy as possible. That's how I feel.

I love poetry, but I find it so difficult to write well.

Nonfiction ties your hands a bit, and just like writing poetry in rhyme, it can force you to make more brutal decisions in terms of word choice, plot, etc.

I don't believe in God, but I do believe in that chaotic reality, and also this: that none of us knows anything about anything. Period.

I have been, earlier in my life, a lazy writer. I'd spend three hours at the gym to avoid writing, or I'd just find other distractions - reading, doing laundry, talking on the phone, etc. But suddenly I was like a laser beam: I was relentlessly focused, sometimes to the detriment of other things.

I do write fiction, and I find it more difficult, but also more liberating. On the one hand, you can make up the story, but you have to make up the story.