Poetry is supposed to be musical. But people don't understand prose. They're so used to reading journalism - clunky, functional sentences that convey factual information - facts, more than just the surfaces of things.

You could grow up in the city where history was made and still miss it all.

I have a horror of silence while I'm writing. It's like the universe is howling at me if I don't have it.

I want to write books that can be read a hundred years from now, and readers wouldn't be bogged down by irrelevant details.

As much as I care about historical context - I'm very eager to read a really great historical account.

Context is everything. Dress me up and see. I'm a carnival barker, an auctioneer, a downtown performance artist, a speaker in tongues, a senator drunk on filibuster. I've got Tourette's. My mouth won't quit, though mostly I whisper or subvocalize like I'm reading aloud, my Adam's apple bobbing, jaw muscle beating like a miniature heart under my cheek, the noise suppressed, the words escaping silently, mere ghosts of themselves, husks of empty breath and tone.

One of the things that novels have tended not to concentrate on over the centuries is the fact that people read books.