I've always wanted to be a poet at the beginning. I would look at my grandparents' books and my parents' books. And in my family, a typical aspirational Jewish family, being a writer was very much exalted, and it seemed impossible to me, that I could ever do something like that.

I thought of myself as kind of an anarchist all my whole adult life, from the days when I was 15 or 16.

“Et Tu, Babe” was born out of my absolute certainty that a writer’s life was solitary and insular, and I was happy with that. I love reading and writing, it’s my whole life.

I'm in that very preliminary stage of wondering how exactly to "pressurize" the novel in some way I've never considered before.

It's in great joy that we grasp truth.

I think to simply make fun of something isn't particularly interesting. I try to not just do a parody of something or belittle something or disparage something.

I guess I can picture things once they're done - I just can't picture actually doing them.