So for me the approach has become to go into a story not really sure of what I want to say, try to find some little seed crystal of interest, a sentence or an image or an idea, and as much as possible divest myself of any deep ideas about it. And then by this process of revision, mysteriously it starts to accrete meanings as you go.

With nonfiction, I go in trying to be really honest about what my preconceptions are.

Whatever your supposed politics are - left, right - if you put it in a human connection, most people will rise to the occasion and feel the human pain in a way that they might not if it was presented in a more conceptual way.

I think when you get to export your creative impulse into something, it kind of lessens that busy energy that can be so confrontational and pissy.

I've always wanted to write energetic, atypical sentences, i.e., sentences that were not normal or bland.

I'm not thinking much about overall themes or preoccupations or anything like that. Instead I'm just trusting that, if I'm working hard, various notions and riffs and motifs and so on are very naturally suffusing the stories and the resulting book.

My artistic approach is that you're supposed to be a little baffled.