I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me.

Develop your pawns or Hulk will smash.

When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the blacks were still poor. Materially, not much changed.

When I write lyrics, I really do go into an automatic folk appropriation mode... I see the vernacular register of 20th century song as being a bunch of forms to adapt and reconfigure.

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

There's never any percentage in being ahead of your time.

I suppose in a way most of my characters are non-consumers, not terribly interested in all the little baubles and artifacts of contemporary life.