New York is at once cosmopolitan and parochial, a compendium of sentimental certainties. It is in fact the most sentimental of the world's great cities - in its self-congratulation a kind of San Francisco of the East.

Novels do take charge of the writer, and the writer is basically a kind of sheepdog just trying to keep things on track.

Violence is the way stupid people try to level the playing field.

The narrative was too constricted; it was like a fetus strangling on its own umbilical cord.

I’ve always thought a novelist only has one character and that is himself or herself.

Because one has written other books does not mean the next becomes any easier.

The point of a notebook is to jumpstart the mind.