You need the art in order to love the life.

I don't do all that well in the writerly world. I'm happier being outside the flow.

Writing has to do with truth-telling. When you're writing, let's say, an essay for a magazine, you try to tell the truth at every moment. You do your best to quote people accurately and get everything right. Writing a novel is a break from that: freedom. When you're writing a novel, you are in charge; you can beef things up.

A bee rose up from a sun-filled paper cup, off to make slum honey from some diet root beer it had found inside.

For me, as a beginning novelist, all other living writers form a control group for whom the world is a placebo.

I woke up thinking a very pleasant thought. There is lots left in the world to read.

In the novel, I can change things and simplify, and make events work towards whatever meanings I'm trying to get at more efficiently.