I subject my sentences and the words to a kind of Grand Inquisition.

Desire is a word I'm tired of. I've been living with that word for years. Yes, of course, we're all desiring machines. I have sometimes wondered what people would want, if there were no advertising. And death, what other subject is there? It's the subject. It's our subject. It's the great human dilemma, that we die and know we will.

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.

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.

Ulysses pissed me off. When Molly Bloom just says, "Yes I said yes I will Yes." And I'm thinking, You should be saying no, Molly. How about no? Saying no is great.

I think that sense of surprise, that you don't know where something is going, or what's going to happen, even as you write, that you're making it up as you go along - that's important to me. It's not a question of shock or surprise in a gimmicky way. It's that as you read, you become more deeply into something and into what happens, and become more involved and engaged, you're learning something or you're appreciating something or seeing something differently - that's what's surprising.

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.