I think some people are not interesting to themselves. They're the sad, resigned folk. When people call themselves ordinary - "I'm just an ordinary person" - you do wonder what they mean, because people who call themselves ordinary occasionally turn out to be serial killers. Beware of those who say they're ordinary.

Kafka wrote the great line: "my education has damaged me in ways I do not even know." And that's always been a signature motto for me.

I learned I could be miserable anywhere in the world. I learned I really was an American.

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

The literary world is more time-traveling than the art world, and novelty is much more important in art than it is in writing.

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.

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