Apparently Brooklyn needn't always push itself to be something else, something conscious and anxious, something pointed toward Manhattan.... Brooklyn might sometimes also be pleased, as here on Flatbush, to be its grubby, enduring self.

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 don't have a lot of paper in my immediate work environment, except when I'm doing things like checking the godforsaken proofs.

However appalling to consider, however tedious to enact, every novel requires furniture, whether it is to be named or unnamed, for the characters will be unable to remain in standing position for the duration of the story.

Nature, or at least birds and women, abhorred the invisible man.

The world's large enough and interesting enough to take a different approach each time you sit down to write about it.

I'm a serial deconstructor of my own authority in certain areas.