It was important to buy into the fact that the nine hundred pages an end-reader never sees are just as valuable as the ones that are bound and placed on the shelf.

I always joke that every novel is really about the same thing: one person's struggle against society.

Memoir is a unique opportunity to revisit yourself. I don't mean by memory. I mean in the revision process. You don't just write a chapter and that's it. You must constantly return to it. You must dote on it. And even if it's saying something ugly about who you are, you have to find the poetry in it. You have to find the poetry in yourself.

I'm always working on something. Addiction never gets any credit, always talked about as a total liability, and I'll admit that most of its traits aren't positive in our lives. But there's one amazing thing it gave me: a tireless work ethic.

Hughes' debut novel, At Dawn, follows a former All-American wrestler, and is there any better metaphor for contemporary American life? We're all wrestling, tussling with the economy, no jobs, doing the best we can. Hughes doesn't flinch from the tough existential questions. He embraces them.

I like art that trusts its audience, that's written for readers who like to work hard. I like art that knows its readers are up to the challenge of interacting with difficult material.

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.