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

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.

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

You learn to read in kindergarten or first grade, and suddenly there's this other world that isn't your family or your school or your friends. It's something else.

I don't think anybody says to Coetzee or Dostoyevsky or Kafka, "Your characters aren't likeable." It's not about your character winning a popularity contest. That's not the writer's job.

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.

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.