The truth is there ain’t no relationship in the world that doesn’t hit turbulence.

It's just a matter of willpower. The day you decide it's over, it's over. You never get over it.

As for my slowness as a writer - that's been a struggle, no question. We live in a culture that values and rewards machine-speed productivity. Even the arts are expected to conform to the Taylor model of productivity.

The greatest myth of all is what America is. I think that America is such an incredibly dynamic place because of immigration.

Sometimes you just have to try, even if you know it won’t work.

A form wherein we can enjoy simultaneously what is best in both the novel and the short story form. My plan was to create a book that affords readers some of the novel's long-form pleasures but that also contains the short story's ability to capture what is so difficult about being human - the brevity of our moments, their cruel irrevocability.

And because love, real love, is not so easily shed.