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

I'd studied English literature and American history, but the English literature, which I thought was going to be helpful to me in an immediate way, was the opposite. So I had to un-think a lot of things and move out of my own head, and I learned a lot. It was like graduate school, but an un-graduate school or an un-school.

I'm the author of my own misery.

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

Obviously the Internet makes everything easier - you get people's addresses and so on and everything seems much more accessible.

I would never want to write a character who was not thoroughly herself or himself. She's a very specific creature in my mind, and she has her thoughts, which range from skin to American history, philosophy, and the arts.

I think it's very hard to reconcile oneself to the notion that it may not matter what you think if you still want to write.