For me, the experience of not living in America was recognizing that I was American. You don't think about yourself being so culturally encoded, so nationally stamped; you don't discover that when you're a tourist for a month. You see how you reflect the place you're from. When I came back from living in Europe, I was very struck by how I didn't see America as the center of the world in the same way. It's very easy to slip back because America is so powerful. But any place you live is the center of the world.

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.

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.

You could say this word is better to use than that word, this sentence is good and that sentence isn't. But you don't determine the value of your work for other people.

Now that I am conscious of the world of chronic pain, when I see somebody walking down the street who's having trouble, I feel a sadness for them. I notice.

It's not the writer who determines how good she is anyway. Writers don't determine that. It's readers who determine that.

Writing and rewriting are the same thing to me. I don't believe what Allen Ginsberg said that "first thought, then - " I just don't believe that.