It's hard to read real fiction. It takes time. It takes a sustained attention.

Nonfiction, for the most part, is facts, and it's "how I was mistreated. I was mistreated. Were you mistreated? Weren't we all mistreated?"

Let's look at what the books are that are being produced. More and more they are being made like movies. To sell. They are being tested out.

I always write the best that I can. And I won't publish it until I have done it right.

In a way, I see my fiction as having moved in that direction - and the characters as dealing simultaneously with their personal history and with the present in which they are trying to make their way. So that the books are simultaneously about public and interior events. And I am having a great time getting confused and crazed writing about them.

When you are writing a character, what the character says is obviously crucial. But what the character doesn't say is absolutely as important as his words.

People do not read, by and large. They watch television.