To me, the process of writing is just reading what I've written and - like running your hand over one of those mod glass stovetops to find where the heat is - looking for where the energy is in the prose, then going in the direction of that. It's an exercise in being open to whatever is there.

Whole swaths of the book [Lincoln in the Bardo] are made up of verbatim quotes from various historical sources, which I cut up and rearranged to form part of the narrative.

I was a straight arrow, a control freak. I didn't do drugs or drink, and this was the '70s. I didn't like the loss of control. Which isn't exactly right, because I didn't know what happened when you did drugs.

I feel nervous because I revere [Zadie Smith] so much. I don't want to be stupid. If I say something stupid, just interrupt me.

I am always considering the reader. Although this is admittedly kind of odd: Which reader? On what day? In what mood? For me, that "reader" is actually just me, if I had never read the story before.

Working with language is a means by which we can identify the bullshit within ourselves (and others).

The contours of the coming disaster expanded to include the deaths of all present.