He insisted on a single trade secret: that you had to survive, find some quiet, and work hard every day.

Reading a novel is just a much more involving and intimate experience than the act of watching a film. I mean, you literally get inside of a novelist's head, and you invest many hours to do so.

Your heartbreak is just another version of the same old story.

You keep thinking that with practice you will eventually get the knack of enjoying superficial encounters, that you will stop looking for the universal solvent, stop grieving. You will learn to compound happiness out of small increments of mindless pleasure.

Most of the people I write about have been ambitious outlanders who have been attracted to New York from other parts of the world.

I envy those writers who outline their novels, who know where they're going. But I find writing is a process of discovery.

Most novelists I know went through a period of intense self-examination and self-loathing after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. I certainly did.