When the publisher here in America wanted to put the word "memoir" on the title page [of 'Winter Journal'] and on the cover, I said, "No, no, no, no, no, no." No genre whatsoever. It's an independent work not really connected to those things at all.

You're too good for this world, and because of that the world will eventually crush you.

There are certain phrases in books of mine, and I don't know where they came from, or how I was capable of thinking up these formulations. It's only in the heat of composition that these things occur to you.

I remember I thought I should become a doctor, even though I had no talent for science whatsoever. Then of course, until I was about sixteen, I thought I might have a shot as a major league baseball player. But once I hit my full adolescence I lost all interest in that. I discovered, in rapid succession, books, girls, alcohol and tobacco, and I've never turned back. Those are the four things I'm most interested in.

I'm generous. I give good tips. It's just - the way I live my life, ironically enough, is: I don't want anything. I'm not a consumer. I don't crave objects.

When I look back at experience [with my father], all I can do is feel pity. You know, how torn he was about how to act, what to say. And it seems an important story to me.

I think all writers are a bit crazy; Damaged souls, incapable of doing anything else.