Our thoughts, our language, are always at a distance from whatever they're trying to describe. We have other kinds of languages, like mathematics, like music, like art, but there's always that gap.

I really dislike when people talk about "experimental," because any good writer is experimental. As a writer, you don't know what the hell you're doing. You're just doing it. You hope it works out well. I've been experimenting with these things myself in my own books.

Everything is up for grabs, everything is relative. Except nothing is if you are serious about it because the moment you become serious about answering a question you have a stake in it. Relatively goes out of the window, in one sense because you're putting your a** out there - you are depending on the answer, you need the answer.

As a writer, you don't know what the hell you're doing. You're just doing it. You hope it works out well.

I had a deep prejudice against the South. It's taken me many years to get over that, be more open and thoughtful.

That's the beauty and the terror of being human beings: We just have these symbolic languages, these dreams, and that's all it ever is.

Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.