I was fortunate to get a lot of mileage out of my vices . . . The point is not to be debilitated by your pleasures. Maybe I have lucky genes or something but I've never been truly addicted to anything, except pleasure in general.

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

Everything becomes symbol and irony when you've been betrayed

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.

There is a shabby nobility in failing all by yourself.

I realized that I might not ever make it as a writer, that it might be because I wasn't good enough, or that it might be because the odds were just too long.