I think that writers have natural canvases, and my canvas, even in short stories, often seems to be the scope of a life.

If there's a black cat that crosses the street in my path, I will turn around and walk 20 minutes out of my way to not cross it.

I'm a private person, a shy person. Sometimes, reading for eleven hours straight feels to me like the perfect way to spend a day.

We need the skeletons of other stories to understand our own, sometimes.

Sex is a good starting point for everything.

Sometimes I read a biography of some tempestuous artist and find myself longing for fireworks! booze! bloody fights!; I do think that life must be so much more thrilling when you're actively miserable.

The triumph of writing fiction is that by doing so, writers can build a more ideal world in themselves.