It was only as I wrote about fear that I began to find paths of access to feelings that were intolerable to me then.

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.

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

My writing life is pretty simple - I try to work every day, almost always in the mornings - and I can only write fiction effectively for about three or at the most four hours. No big mysteries, I just sit down and try to advance the cause a little bit every day.

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

Discomfort is very much part of my master plan.

Some people have things written all over their faces; the big guy had a couple of words misspelled in crayon on his.