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

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.

As a reader myself, which precedes my being a writer, of course, I read in order to enter another world.

Wanting to know all kinds of things is perfect for novelists, because novelists are generalists. We're not specialists in anything, except, hopefully, writing.

Being in Europe had helped me unlearn some of what I'd been taught or unconsciously believed.

Conversation on the page should reflect what the story is about. It doesn't have to be "realistic" in the sense that it's something you heard and plugged into a story.

When something in a sequence is edited, if you repeat an image, but in a different place, the effect is different. Because the brain is remembering, and the different juxtaposition triggers other memories, thoughts, ideas, and so on.