For many people it's Facebook, or sports on TV, whatever it is. I have my own demons that I battle. But whatever they are, you wish you could not do them. For most of us it's "I cannot get off Facebook." But imagine that your demon has you living on the street. I don't think those compulsions and obsessions are that different.

What kind of wife would I be if I left your father simply because he was dead?

I love humor in writing, so I've written to the thing that's funny, there's the joke, but then I just kept going. I started thinking about all the bikes I've had stolen, and that got me thinking about crime, and that got me thinking about the city I'm in.

I realized the structure in a collection is how they're put together. Structuring the collection became the art of it for me. Because the stories had all been written.

Because I'm a novelist, I think in terms of structure. The way I keep going is through structure. It's what inspires me and pushes me through.

There are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant — sail for Asia and stumble on America — and the hope of scarecrows and tin men: that you find out you had the thing you sought all along.

If a police officer arrests a mime, does he need to tell him he has the right to remain silent.