She took my hand and pulled me after her, her shoulders giving off a sweet peppermint concoction that the bodies of young women sometimes produce to make my life more difficult.

My parents were constantly afraid they would lose their jobs. The idea that we were always a paycheck away from disaster was drilled into me.

I always think that good writers should be growing up on the brink of death - it really lets them see mortality very clearly.

... I'm the fortieth-ugliest man in this bar. But so what! So what! What if someday she lets me kiss each one of her freckles again? She has like a million. But every one of them means something to me. Isn't this how people used to fall in love? I know we're living in Rubenstein's America, like you keep saying. But doesn't that just make us even more responsible for each other's fates? I mean, what if Eunice and I just said no to all this. To this bar. To this FACing. The two of us. What if we just went home and read books to each other?

The best thing about the iPhone is this that tells me where I am all the time. Theres never a need to feel lost anymore.

I am born hungry. Ravenous. I want to eat the world, and I can never be satiated.

I write five, six days a week. The thing is capturing the voice. I feel like I've been perfecting one voice - in different iterations, sure, but the Russian-ness has always been the undercurrent.