I think that writers often try too hard in the name of expression, when often it's just a matter of reframing what's around you or republishing a preexisting text into a new environment that makes for a successful work.

For me, Twitter is a public persona. I don't interact. It's a lousy form for conversation and opinion, but a wonderful propaganda and sloganeering tool. I use it as a one-way street.

You can't show me a sentence, word, or phoneme that is meaningless; by its nature, language is packed with meaning and emotion.

If you don't want something to exist - and there are many reasons to want to keep things private - keep it off the web. But if you put it in digital form, expect it to be bootlegged, remixed, manipulated, and endlessly commented upon.

Short attention span is the new avant-garde. Everyone complains that we can no longer intake huge chunks of text. I find that a reason to celebrate. It's something that has deep roots in modernism, stretching from the Futurists' use of typography to Pound's use of ideograms to concrete poetry. David Markson feels particularly relevant now. Twitter is the revenge of modernism.

My books are better thought about than read. They're insanely dull and unreadable.But they're wonderful to talk about and think about, to dip in and out of, to hold, to have on your shelf.

Language is material to shape and mold, not only a transparent or invisible medium for communication, business contracts, or telling stories.