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.

You can think everything is dire, but you act as if there's possibility. I see children coming into the world as an expression of this. Sometimes, not always - it can just be somebody that wasn't on the birth control pill or didn't have access to abortion. But I usually see a wanted child as a sign of optimism, and I like that.

You have to create the space for the possibility of people speaking as they do. If writing is supposed to lead us in any way or educate or suggest other ways of being, it can't do so by simply reflecting what's considered to be realistic.

I am interested in people, and I am interested enough in people that I want to be friends with a lot of people and know about their lives. So I'm not a hermit. I'm also interested in writing about other things. It goes on and on. I sometimes wish that I had a different personality. But then I would write different types of books.

You could say this word is better to use than that word, this sentence is good and that sentence isn't. But you don't determine the value of your work for other people.

I'm not interested in safety. A great risk in writing is imagining you have something to protect. Playing it safe to placate someone or something. People talk about compromise, but often people don't even know when they're compromising, because they're not conscious of contradictions.

Nonfiction gives you subjects. Writing fiction I can have more fun, but I have to invent my subject.