During the 90s, I watched a lot of people getting fat and prosperous, and I thought, culture itself is the casualty of this.

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

I like writing sentences. It's tactile and exciting. Whereas working at the level of the scene is a more cerebral pleasure.

Hollywood is famous for breeding monsters, and having worked in the business, I've known a lot of them. But only intermittently have I ever found them monstrous. They have many other qualities.

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.)

Even though I think writers can sometimes thrive from being misread. It can give them something to push off of.

I think being central to the culture is overrated. Who really gives a damn if something is popular? Jay-Z isn't actually any better than James Joyce even though more people understand him.