I unplug the phone and close the door and just stick with it. I don't ever go out for lunch and I don't take vacations. I like to be awake when no one else is: either just before dawn in the morning or late, late at night. Silence helps.

Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.

We come into the world whole, all of us, but we don't know that, don't know that life will be taking large chunks out of us, forever.

Once upon a time, my mother lived in the posh downtown of Homs, Syria. She described my grandfather as a king in a storybook, atop a horse, wearing a didashah and pointing a long arm.

Writers collect stories of rituals: John Cheever putting on a jacket and tie to go down to the basement, where he kept a desk near the boiler room. Keats buttoning up his clean white shirt to write in, after work.

In every person's face, there is one place that seems to express them most accurately. With my grandmother, you always looked at her mouth.

Casebook is my attempt at a love story. I had a vision of a difficult love.