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.

It's true you have to screen out a lot living in the city. I stayed away from New York for a long time after college, and when I was first back, I'd read The Village Voice and feel like I was having a panic attack.

I think the major device for me is that narrator's voice. I'm always trying to find a different kind of form to tell whatever story it is, and I wish that weren't so, because it drives me crazy.

I think about material that could work in the novel or story as I'm writing. I see if I can get there through what's happening with the character. But it's by inclination. It's not "At this moment this will happen." Usually with my characters you can't tell what has induced them to do anything. That's because, from my understanding of reality - which is always subjective - everything is overdetermined.

Reading gave me great comfort and pleasure. When I started being able to write, around seven or eight, I wanted to be able to do that myself, to create that other world.

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

If I have to work on something for too long, then it must be wrong. At a certain point, if I've worked on a sentence for about an hour, then I realize that it's probably not the right sentence and means I'm trying to make something fit that's ungainly.