Quite often you want to tell somebody your dream, your nightmare. Well, nobody wants to hear about someone else's dream, good or bad; nobody wants to walk around with it. The writer is always tricking the reader into listening to the dream.

Only the dying man can tell how much time he has left.

I never had much interest in being a child. As a way of being it seemed flat, failed to engage.

Sometimes an actor performs a character, but sometimes an actor just performs. With writing, I don't think it's performing a character, really, if the character you're performing is yourself. I don't see that as playing a role. It's just appearing in public.

It Was Once Suggested to Me that, as an Antidote to Crying, I Put My Head in a Paper Bag.

Innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself.

When I'm working on a book, I constantly retype my own sentences. Every day I go back to page one and just retype what I have. It gets me into a rhythm.