I have very mixed feelings about the movie business, and about Los Angeles in general.

My own sense is that fiction is inching its way over to join poetry on the cultural margin. It's an area of passionate concern for me, as for many people, but it's nowhere near as central to the culture as it used to be.

A lot of talent, a lot of the currency that movies used to have, has spilled over into TV. People talk about TV the way they used to talk about movies and, as much as I hate to say it, the way they used to talk about books.

Jay-Z isn't actually any better than James Joyce even though more people understand him. I'm more interested in what's meaningful within the lives of individuals. And fiction will always be central to the lives of certain people, which is all that matters.

I do have complicated feelings about Hollywood, but I also have tremendously affectionate ones.

It's hard to imagine there's a place for great writing inside a multinational conglomerate.

Usually when people say they have mixed feelings about something, it's a sort of euphemistic way of saying they hate it.