I'm a control freak. I'm defensive. And I'm an egomaniac. That's true about me.

And I have finally realized that, you know, it's not a given that my lifespan will accommodate my writing aspirations. It could be that it would take me 12 more books at six years each to get it - which means I would have to live to be 126. Which I fully intend to do, of course.

Even if something within me is ugly, writing is a pretty good place to play with that thing and to begin to really see it.

An artist's job is to be interested in things as they are.

I often wonder if there are certain areas of real life that are roped off, with a sign saying, "Art, don't come in here." But that's maybe a deeper question.

In art, and maybe just in general, the idea is to be able to be really comfortable with contradictory ideas. In other words, wisdom might be, seem to be, two contradictory ideas both expressed at their highest level and just let to sit in the same cage sort of, vibrating. So, I think as a writer, I'm really never sure of what I really believe.

Chekhov - shall I be blunt? - is the greatest short story writer who ever lived.