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

I definitely care about how the concept of New York punk was constructed, and why it mattered. But I wasn't gonna do that. Partly because I'm not a great journalist...

There's something about the rhythms of language that correspond to the rhythms of our own bodies.

I've discovered that like every writer, I'm helpless MYSELF - and that means I find myself unconsciously or semi-consciously repeating motifs and themes and even using certain words or images recurrently in my work, no matter how much I think I'm starting fresh. But I've always admired artists who made a specific sport of trying to visit different kinds of genres or mediums or modes - not just 'western' or 'detective', but comedy/tragedy, epic and miniature, traditional/experimental.

Making books has always felt very connected to my bookselling experience, that of wanting to draw people's attention to things that I liked, to shape things that I liked into new shapes.

It's impossible to overstate how my relationship to music forms a preserve for the esoteric or even spiritual aspect of my relationship to cultural stuff, to human expressivity... it's a safe enclosure.

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