Once you fall into habits, I think, you're dead as an artist. You have to challenge yourself and never rest on your laurels, never think about what you've done in the past.

I hate feeling too complacent when I write. I like to be solving new problems.

I keep one simple rule that I only move in one direction - I write the book straight through from beginning to end. By following time's arrow I keep myself sane.

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

I've just finished reading Reality Hunger and I'm lit up by it-astonished, intoxicated, ecstatic, overwhelmed. . . . It really is an urgent book: a piece of art-making itself, a sublime, exciting, outrageous, visionary volume.

Apologies aren't something you want to get in the habit of practicing in the mirror

I can't bear the silent ringing in my skull.