A Thousand Pardons began at the beginning. I wanted it to be one continuous, almost breathless kind of story. In order to do that, it's really hard not to begin at the beginning. There's such a chain of consequence to everything that happens to main characters - it's very hard to break it apart and still be able to hold the plot in your head.

I hesitate to say yes - I had writer's block, because I know there are people who've had really serious cases of it, and I've never been paralyzed like that, but I definitely get blocked sometimes. More than periods where I don't write anything, I have periods where I just write junk and I know I'm writing junk but I can't stop.

Those who know New York City primarily through tourism or mass culture may think of us natives as possessing certain shared characteristics, not all of them flattering. But the true, volatile charisma of New York lies in how balkanised it is.

New York is ultimately not the synthesis but merely the sum of its unfathomable subjectivities, its personal histories, its uncategorisable figures.

I worry that's what people are going to think about me if they kind of go backwards. But if that didn't happen to you, I'll feel better.

Kenneth Branagh. There was a time in my life when people would tell me constantly that I look like him. I could do a lot worse than that.

Novels are a kind of experiment in selfhood, for the reader as well as for the author.