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.

Every book is a kind of experiment in doing something that feels impossible.

I never have been a musician; I'm not actually capable. Because I can't even pretend to acquire the gift, all of my first feelings about art are still attached to music. I look at it yearningly, I look at it wonderingly. I behold it from afar, as something unattainable, something outside of myself, from which I can take nourishment, but I can't domesticate and master.

For me, music is sort of the art that I can't incorporate into my person the way I want to.

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.

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

Nerds are just deep, and neurotic, fans. Needy fans. We're all nerds, on one subject or another.