We're outsiders, and so when we walk through the city, we're there and not there at the same time, participating and observing simultaneously.

Every generation always thinks it was better before, and I think people have been saying this for probably thousands of years.

All through my writing life I've had this impulse to write autobiographical works.

The biggest book for me, when I was fifteen, was Crime and Punishment, which I read in a kind of fever. When I put it down, I thought, if this is what novels are then I want to be a novelist.

Bodies count, of course - they count more than we're willing to admit - but we don't fall in love with bodies, we fall in love with each other. We all know that, but the moment we go beyond a catalogue of surface qualities and appearances, words begin to fail us, to crumble apart in mystical confusions and cloudy, unsubstantial metaphors.

I write the paragraph, then I'm crossing out, changing words, trying to improve it. When it seems more or less OK, then I type it up because sometimes it's almost illegible, and if I wait, I might not be able to read it the next day.

As long as you are dreaming, there is always a way out