My job as the novelist is to present the whole case, then the reader gets to render her verdict.

I'm a very tactile learner, so I need analog index cards, moving them all about, trying out various sequences for the book's architecture.

The point of reading is to inhabit a consciousness that doesn't belong to the reader, immersing yourself in a life that's wholly realized. And a huge facet of our psychic and existential make-ups is the things we're not proud of, things we didn't ask to experience, the scenarios we flubbed.

In my life the right question is simply this: What can I do to be happy today?

I'll never be the sort of author who sells that many copies. You'll never see a book of mine being sold on a table at Costco, between the extra-large jorts and a barrel of salsa. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I'll be indie till I die.

It takes a lot of time to be a good junkie or alcoholic - you spend hours getting the necessary supplies, then imbibing, then recovering, rinse and repeat. That's like eighteen hours of a day. And assuming you get out of that lifestyle before it macerates your heart, you have that Junkie Tunnel Vision, except now you get to use it for something positive: you know how to work tirelessly for one thing. Instead of using that tunnel vision to get high, I use it to make art.

I never wanted/expected to write a memoir, but this life thing, it has a way of sideswiping our worlds, scaring us so thoroughly that our past lenses of contextualizing events don't work - they cease to matter.