But standing in that hallway, it was all coming back to me. Memories were waiting at the edges of things, beckoning to me.

Everything has to be intrinsic plot-wise in the same way, to use the Linda Williams analogy but to move it on a bit, as musicals - in old musicals, like in an old Cole Porter musical, you get the action, then they do a song, which reflects a moment - everything stops while that is being sung - and then you restart. These days in most musicals, the plot keeps moving through the song. I think it would be nice if someone constructed some pornography where the sex continues to propel you through the story.

I think I love my dreaming process because one of the things that my dreaming process does is sort out stories for me.

We do what we do, because of who we are. If we did otherwise, we would not be ourselves.

All bookshelves are magical.

The strangest part of being so well known is definitely getting a New Yorker profile. It's a wonderful, strange process, like seeing yourself through a distorting mirror.

Nobody will ever hurt her. She’ll just smile her faint vague wonderful smile and walk away.