I sometimes get asked if I think about film stuff while I'm writing fiction, and the answer is, of course not.

I was so very interested in literature and so relatively uninterested in the movies when I was a teenager.

I don't feel like I'm self-conscious about what's next. I don't care. I know what it's like to be ignored, and I know what it's like not to be.

I don't want to say that having power is overrated, but powerlessness can give rise to a different kind of authority, and that's the kind of authority that writes books.

I sometimes get asked if I think about film stuff while I'm writing fiction, and the answer is, of course not.

I think having power ingrains people with a conservatism. There's a tendency to hedge one's bets. (Which explains a lot, actually, about why the movie business is the way it is, and why the publishing industry is too.)

I'm going to write what I feel like writing, which is a great place to be. But it can be hard to get there. It's so easy to get stricken with one kind of self-consciousness or another.