What's lucky about my career in general is that I stumbled into what every writer most wants. Not repeating myself and doing strange things has become my trademark.

My heart, to put it more simply, got nostalgic for the present. Always a bad sign.

You don’t have the slightest idea of what it means to write a scene and a character in the English language, with images and words chock full of received meaning.

By removing the stories from the morass of things that surround us, I'm hoping to achieve some kind of purer approach to emotional life.

I never take any notes or draw charts or make elaborate diagrams, but I hold an image of the shape of a book in my head and work from that mental hologram.

What's beautiful about art is that it circumscribes a space, a physical and mental space. If you try to put the entire world into every page, you turn out chaos.

I prefer old books and find them more relevant. I dislike new books. It's like drinking wine that's not ready.