To the resentment that hides inside love, to the loneliness that hides among companions.

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.

I work on a laptop specifically so I can work in cafes and pretend I'm part of the human world.

The past is still visible. The buildings haven't changed, the layout of the streets hasn't changed. So memory is very available to me as I walk around.

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

I plan less and less. It's a great benefit of writing lots, that you get good at holding long narratives in your head like a virtual space.

As a child growing up in pre-gentrification Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, I went everywhere by bicycle. My bike was in many ways the key to my neighborhood, which, at the time, was Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. This was in the 60s and 70s, before all the white people and restaurants. I really can't underscore boldly enough the fact that I grew up in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, before it was gentrified. You could get mugged!