Back in 1992, I had my first story accepted by 'The New Yorker.'

That's the only way that I can figure out how to live, is to say, "Well, I don't know what this adds up to, but I can do the best I can."

The scariest thought in the world is that someday I'll wake up and realize I've been sleepwalking through my life: underappreciating the people I love, making the same hurtful mistakes over and over, a slave to neuroses, fear, and the habitual.

On one level, I am a total softie, sort of depressed and afraid of losing the people I love or failing them. To disguise that, there's all this harsh, poop-centric, external swagger, full of nastiness. I'm a cloaking device.

All traditions are also full of meanness for the sake of meanness.

In fiction, conceptualizing, I've found, produces dull and over-controlled text.

A John Updike is a once-in-a-generation phenomenon, if that generation is lucky: so comfortable in so many genres, the same lively, generous intelligence suffusing all he did.