I can tell from about 20 yards away when someone has a manuscript for me. I can just tell - they have that look.

I dont walk around chuckling all the time. My outlook is very bleak. Its worse than bleak, its apocalyptic.

Sometimes I think my purpose is as a saboteur when I'm working with other people, derailing what they're trying to do or taking things to a ludicrous extremity.

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

Actually what's worse than a dog's mouth is a cat's mouth. They're not dirtier per se, but they have sharper teeth, so they are much more likely to go deep, should they bite you.

Stand-up comedy had an interesting effect on me in terms of how I started to think about constructing things, because I really loved the interstices, the linkages, or lack thereof.

I always thought of my work as being animated by a spirit of unhinged generosity.