I'm interested in such things as the difference between how we perceive the world and what the world turns out to be. The difference is between the stories we tell others and the stories we tell ourselves. There is a wonderful Russian saying, which I use as the epigraph of one of my novels, which goes, He lies like an eyewitness. Which is very sly, clever and true.

Perhaps the world progresses not by maturing, but by being in a permanent state of adolescence, of thrilled discovery.

Alice Munro can move characters through time in a way that no other writer can.

But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life’s business.

There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond this there is great unrest.

The land of embarrassment and breakfast.

Love is just a system for getting someone to call you darling after sex.