So much of what I am doing in my fiction is just trying to get into interesting places in terms of language or form, places that don't bore me. And this happens via hundreds of quick micro-decisions that are done "to taste," so to speak. So the experience is one of groping toward that interesting place - trying to leap away from anything that seems boring, or about which I don't have strong opinions. Essentially trying to avoid that moment where, devoid of any strong feeling, I start conceptualizing.

One of the principals of composition, I would say, in fiction, is you want to do what you can do a lot of. You want to do what you're enthusiastic about and what rings your bell. In this case, almost every decision I made was on that basis.

The idea is that what an artist lives through should broaden his notion of what it is possible for a human being to live through, and that new understanding should then get into and expand the work.

I'm a big lover of America. I love the people, but also the weird berms, the strange little high schools tucked away in different places, and just the whole geography and the psycho­logical apparatus of Americans.

Compassion doesn't have to be weak or enabling; it can also be quite bold.

Realism is to fiction what gravity is to walking: a confinement that allows dancing under the right circumstances.

It's a time when a lot of principle virtues are being tested. Do we still believe in the truth? Do we still believe in empathy? Do we still believe the protection of the weakest among us? These are yes or no questions, but the means of communication is all tied up with those virtues and you can't abandon those virtues as you pursue them.