I'd like to have the kind of house someday where a carousel horse wouldn't be out of place in the living room.

The only sensible approach is not to take it too seriously. What counts is the writing.

The 20th century saw far greater catastrophes than September 11th, as bad as it was, and they didn't render literature or art or music irrelevant. In fact, I think that literature and art help us to understand - sometimes they provide narratives and metaphors for understanding history, for understanding recent catastrophes.

The most interesting things that happen in my books are usually the things that arise spontaneously, the things that surprise me.

Tim Thornton's portrait of a pop culture obsession is so convincing that one can't help wishing that his fictional alt rock band actually existed, or suspecting that they did. The Alternative Hero is a weirdly compelling portrait of fanatic fandom which reads like High Fidelity at high volume.

Sometimes I think the difference between what we want and what we're afraid of is about the width of an eyelash.

I remain a fan of my friend Bret Easton Ellis's 'American Psycho.' I think as a book about New York in the '80s it was pretty excellent.