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

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.

Toronto is hard to capture in a few strokes.

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

We're getting used to reality and fantasy passing into each other. Much of the border between them has been erased.

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

We want to know that we're not alone with our loneliness or loss.