So much of the effort that goes into writing prose for me is about making sentences that capture the music that I'm hearing in my head. It takes a lot of work, writing, writing, and rewriting to get the music exactly the way you want it to be.

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'm a firm believer that there are no rules in art. Every trajectory is different.

I've always been passionately in love with movies, to such a degree that even as a young person of about nineteen or twenty I thought maybe I would try to become a film director. The reason I didn't do it was because I felt I didn't have the right personality. At that time in my life, I was mortally shy.

Waves, sky, trees, Essrog - I was off the page now, away from the grammar of skyscrapers and pavement.

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

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