I haven't had writer's block. I think it's because my process involves writing very badly.

At night, the house thick with sleep, she would peer out her bedroom window at the trees and sky and feel the presence of a mystery. Some possibility that included her--separate from her present life and without its limitations. A secret. Riding in the car with her father, she would look out at other cars full of people she'd never seen, any one of whom she might someday meet and love, and would feel the world holding her making its secret plans.

Music and time have such an interesting relationship. Music makes time fall away like almost nothing else. You hear a song from another moment of your life and it really is like you're still there. That's why the music of our youth ends up being particularly powerful. The coming of age music that you grab a hold of as the symbol or the expression of your independence and hopes for the future and anger and rebellion or whatever it is you're feeling is so powerful for the rest of your life when you hear it.

Goon Squad' took about three years to write and that's the short end. My second novel, 'Look at Me,' took six years.

We live in a moment and a culture when reading is really endangered. There's simply no way to write well, though, if you're not reading well.

Kissing Mother Superior, incompetent, hairball, poppy seeds, on the can.

That adage about 'Write what you know' is basically the opposite of the way I function. I write about what I'm curious to find out.