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

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.

For me, the experience of not living in America was recognizing that I was American. You don't think about yourself being so culturally encoded, so nationally stamped; you don't discover that when you're a tourist for a month. You see how you reflect the place you're from. When I came back from living in Europe, I was very struck by how I didn't see America as the center of the world in the same way. It's very easy to slip back because America is so powerful. But any place you live is the center of the world.

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.

I think many writers really believe that being published is a traumatic experience.

Whatever the style is, I want to have a sense that the writer is thinking, and really trying to get at something, and that there's a sense of discovery as the writing goes along.

I've always liked elliptical writing, whether it's Kafka or Paula Fox, and I'm often bored by writers who explain too much. I think that becomes journalism. Mostly I don't try to explain to readers who somebody is - I just write about the somebody. I'm thinking through ideas. And I have the sense that, if you're reading this, you have some interest.