I think of memory as a game, that is as something one engages in with a very profound kind of "playfulness."

I have an enduring, very robust infatuation with dictators. I have an infatuation with Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini. In the Paris Review interview I did (in 2013), I said my next book, this one, was going to be about Mussolini. I wound up only having a Mussolini cameo in the book.

When you are a child, you often stare too closely at the wrong thing. I remember the first time I was taken to Yankee Stadium. Someone had spilled something sweet earlier in the day and the ground was covered with ants. I spent the whole game staring at the ants, and that was more fascinating than the game.

I'm fascinated with video games, though I can't really play them. It's definitely an art form that intrigues me to no end, though.

The interesting thing about something in the back of your mind is that it can travel pretty far back in your mind.

People have no idea how much work it is for a man to produce an ejaculation. You have this seminal vesicle churning out this fluid, the prostate gland producing an alkaline solution. It's like having five iron chefs in your crotch working to cook up this stuff.

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.