When I think about what fiction does morally, I'm happier thinking of a person full of multiplicities - sort of fragmented.

My stories, I can understand them as a little toy that you wind up and you put it on the floor and it just goes under the coach. That I get. Beyond that, I'm a little lost.

The way I understood purgatory - and maybe you've got a different version - but in Chicago in the '70s, the idea was it was like detention. You had screwed up and you go over there in purgatory and you sit there until the end of days and then we'll decide. You'd made your mistake, and you were in prison, and it's not terrible and it's not great, and you feel a little crappy because you were not in the presence of God.

The number of rooms in a fictional house should be inversely proportional to the years during which the couple living in that house enjoyed true happiness.

I had an experience a few years ago where I was on a plane in which one of the engines went out. I couldn't even remember my name. I was just repeating the word no over and over.

I'm finding, as I get older, that I'm not much of a believer in redemption. I mean, I believe in redemption in real life - redemption does happen, and it's cool when it does - but I find myself getting leery of my desire for it in stories (especially my own).

Whatever happens, we can deal with it if we admit that it's happening and so on. So to be comfortable with what is - that is a real superpower.