People really want to believe that there is no fiction. I think they find it much easier to imagine that novelists are writing memoirs, writing about their lives, because it's difficult to conceive that there's a great imaginary life in which you can participate.

When I started, I wanted to be thought of as tortured and seductive, not funny, but humor tends to be a reflexive part of a person's sensibility. It's an almost impossible thing to teach anyone, which leads me to believe that it's intuitive.

I think people got in touch with me either knowing my work, or probably more frequently just knowing a plot or sort of buzz about something I did and sort of saying, "Get that guy that writes the crazy stuff in here."

My relationship with my readers is somewhat theatrical. One of the main things I try to do in my work is delight my readers.

One of the things that struck me as unique about Hollywood is that I never had bad meetings. There were all enthusiastic, but meaninglessly enthusiastic.

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.

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