The computer is the way I'm making books, but I still think about the physical properties. I visualize the length of a book, the proportions of a book, in material terms.

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

I've had the odd good luck of starting slowly and building gradually, something few writers are allowed anymore. As a result I've seen each of my books called the breakthrough. And each was, in its way.

I had an all-Fear of Music iPod, just versions of the 11 songs from the record. No other songs allowed.

You don’t have the slightest idea of what it means to write a scene and a character in the English language, with images and words chock full of received meaning.

The book is openly a kind of spiritual autobiography, but the trick is that on any other level it's a kind of insane collage of fragments of memory.

Discomfort is very much part of my master plan.