Now that I'm an older woman, I'm so much more aware of the changes - almost too aware. I feel sorry for being so dismissive. You have to think about what you're thinking about and realize that you're thinking it.

I'm bothered, as a reader, when I feel the writer is filling in too much. Again, whether it's nonfiction or fiction, I think writers are providing a kind of template or platform for thinking and imagining.

There may be an art to conversation, and some are better at it than others, but conversation's virtue lies in randomness and possibility: people, without a plan, could speak a spontaneous, unexpected truth, because revelation rules. Telling words recur in this smart, generous conversation between Stephen Andrews and Gregg Bordowitz: patience, responsibility, feminism, ethics, cosmology, AIDS, gift, freedom, mortality.

I still do believe that form and content are very much related. I think throwing away some of the rule books on that is a good thing.

There are lots of unlikable characters in literature. It doesn't mean they're not fascinating.

Do the obvious, you won't forget it. Do the obvious, you won't regret it. Obvious, obvious, obvious.

People are less focused on the story, and more on how the story is told.