Toronto is hard to capture in a few strokes.

The real past can traumatize us, but so can the real future.

Absurdity isn't quite so absurd as it once was.

I like a great degree of compression. I like to mix lateral steps with forward ones. I don't want the prose ever to feel simply functional - at least not for any stretch.

The idea that language can be recombined to create new forms, new things, is of course very old in poetry.

We can't write a serious novel in the 21st century without acknowledging the inescapable self-awareness we're stuck with. The idea we're surrounded by falsehoods and lies. It's hard for the thinking person to believe in narratives. And yet we want some place to invest our belief.

I seem always to have two or three novels going at once. It takes me a long time to finish one.