I need to stay in the present and use that new-age mantra: 'I'm okay right now.' But I worry about all the things I'm failing at every moment.

Then again, the name, the associations with a writer's name, can add to the reader's entertainment and pleasure.

I'm actually much more shy and self-conscious than people's perception of me.

Some ego is involved because I guess one wants to be perceived as a good clown and one puts one's name on the art; but it's so hard to do anything in life, trapped as we are in our bodies, that is purely selfless for others... somehow the self is always involved.

For me, books have always been a way to feel less alone while being alone.

People don't expect too much from literature. They just want to know they're not alone with being confused.

I don't like rides. I take everything in life quite literally, and so I genuinely feel terrified on rides and liable to vomit at any moment, and I hate to vomit even more than I fear rides. So, all this to say, I don't have a favorite ride. I don't go on rides. Well, that's not true. A few years ago I had a beautiful, romantic moment on the Ferris wheel at Coney Island, known as the Wonder Wheel, and so I guess that's my favorite ride, though even that, to be frank, terrified me.