People in the upper classes can just as easily be indifferent to their own body, or treat themselves as badly, as people who don't have the money. There are always differences among differences.

I think there's much more privileging of the new in art. I think people want to think they privilege the new in writing, but I agree with Virginia Woolf. She wrote a great essay called "Craftsmanship" about how difficult it is to use new words. It's really hard, but you see them coming in because obviously, if you're going to write... I mean, even to write "cell phone" in a novel - it's so boring.

Any writer knows that what's left out is as essential, if not more so, than what's there. Unlearning works that way.

I don't believe a picture is worth a thousand words, unless they're very confusing words.

I don't have the education of an art historian. I've certainly read about art and look at art and have educated myself to some extent. But I'm not a skilled or thorough art historian and I wouldn't call myself an art critic.

I'm bothered, as a reader, when I feel the writer is filling in too much. Again, whether it's nonfiction or fiction, I think writers are providing a kind of template or platform for thinking and imagining.

When something in a sequence is edited, if you repeat an image, but in a different place, the effect is different. Because the brain is remembering, and the different juxtaposition triggers other memories, thoughts, ideas, and so on.