My tunnel vision allows me to have a longer work day than most writers. I'm thankful for that.

For the book to succeed, it has to have equal parts ugliness and beauty, counterpoints adding up to emotional complexity. To me, there's a dignity in letting your art be emotionally complex.

I used to consider myself to be a cineophile, and then I had a daughter. Ha! Now I barely see any movies.

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

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

It's a beautiful aspect of narrative construction, hunting for the right images and metaphors to render our character's hearts/minds/souls as though they're ecosystems, full-fledged settings for a reader to inhabit like a place.

My musical sensibilities were formed around punk rock, that quintessential dilution of an art that's both ugly and lovely at the same time.