I think that becoming a parent kind of made me try to be more responsible. And it made me much more stressful.

In America, where writers are preoccupied with the craft of writing, I always try to introduce this concept of the badly written good story. Turning the hierarchy around and putting passion on top and not craft, because when you just focus on craft, you can write something that is very sterile.

As a monogamous creature, I feel sometimes that it fills up a function that affairs have in married people's life.

My stories are very compact. I want them to say the most complex things in the simplest way.

In the army you feel violated - there's no private space. Writing was a life-saver, a way of recovering private territory.

What you experience in the army, aged 18 to 21, is what you take through all your life. You cross invisible lines: you shoot someone, get shot, break into people's houses. It's naive to think you won't carry anything into your life.

Even as a very young man, I knew that my family is like a plant. Uproot it, and it will wilt. Pluck away at it, and it will die. But leave it to thrive in the soil, untouched, and it will weather both gods and winds. It is born with the soil, and it will live so long as the soil shall live.