Americans are genuinely and profoundly anti-intellectual. They are especially so in their pleasure-seeking, which is epically banal.

I don't start with an idea or concept in the sense that I flesh out an idea or concept and set it at the center of something.

I believe my friends think I'm funny. All the books are full of humor. Maybe it is a quiet sort of humor that masquerades as not-much-at-all. It is certainly easy to miss.

A beginning idea for a book might be: a boy emerges from a hole in the ground. He enters a house. The book will take place in the first ten minutes following his arrival.

Much of my work has been done in first person.

Clarity is the most important thing to me - in thinking - and so I try in the books to be as clear as possible.

The books turn out to be about things afterwards. I don't go into them with concepts, for the most part.