I think most writers can't really think about their work without a kind of revulsion. And I think that's probably why we keep going back and trying again, trying to do better each time.

I think that sense of unreality inspired me to write the story within the book that [August] Brill tells himself, one of the stories he tells himself.

I've been trying to fit everything in, trying to get to the end before it's too late, but I see now how badly I've deceived myself. Words do not allow such things. The closer you come to the end, the more there is to say. The end is only imaginary, a destination you invent to keep yourself going, but a point comes when you realize you will never get there. You might have to stop, but that is only because you have run out of time. You stop, but that does not mean you have come to an end.

It always stimulates me to discover new examples of my own prejudice and stupidity, to realize that I don't know half as much as I think I do.

It's like a mathematical law, Grace.

Art is not politics. The glory of the novel is that in its essence, it is a democratic form, because it treats individuals as worthy of scrutiny. That alone is a kind of political act. A good novel about a tea party of rich women can be just as galvanizing and important to the soul as War and Peace, so I think it's not really the job of artists to do anything. They can have their opinions as private citizens, but they must continue making their art.

Each book I've done somehow finds its own unique form, a specific way it has to be written, and once I find it, I stick with it.