My most recent novel didn't start out scaring me, but as I got deeper into writing it, it scared me. It's not so much where the story's going. It's where it came from. I always come out of it thinking, Okay, that got it all outta me. The next one's gonna be nice and simple, and it's not gonna scare me, and that never seems to happen.

Joe Bonomo has written a fine book: a book not only about a band or times passed, but also about the rare virtue of endurance.

For years, I never really pondered how I came to be a writer from where I came from.

I wanted to just get a job so I could have enough money for my own apartment and be able to get drunk. And I did. Back then, on $125, you could do that in Manhattan. I was 19 years old the first time I got published and paid. I think it was a hundred bucks. I stared at my name on the check for 20 minutes.

You see, I needed to go to Hell.

The older you get, the more you live with ghosts.

I think Elvis Presley will never be solved