I guess what I'm trying to say is that whatever weirdness was going to be in there, I felt, had to be earned. And it had to be required by the emotional needs of the book.

My general approach to writing fiction is that you try to have as few conceptual notions as possible and you just respond to the energy that the story is making rather than having a big over plan. I think if you have a big over plan, the danger is that you might just take your plan and then you bore everybody. I always joke that it's like going on a date with index cards. You know, at 7:30 p.m. I should ask about her mother. You keep all the control to yourself but you are kind of insulting to the other person.

If I can be more efficient, I'm actually being more respectful to the reader, which then implies a greater intimacy with the reader.

As a kid, I had a real fascination with perverse, off-color, and kind of risky things, and I also had a very sanctimonious Catholic, purist side.

In my case, when I am trying to be "kind" I often default in a sort of toothless loving-all stance that is, actually, not kind, because it is not truthful.

Sometimes I think fiction exists to model the way God might think of us, if God had the time and inclination to do so.

It is very easy for us to go, you know, "I am being cruel to be kind," when really we are just ... being cruel. Because it makes us feel big, or whatever.