It's an ethical pact I've made with myself and with the reader - not to invent. And when I can't remember, I say I can't remember. I'm just appalled by the memoirs published by people who regurgitate dialogue, conversations from when they were small children, and they go on for three or four pages. I can't even remember what we said to each other ten minutes ago! How can I remember what was said sixty years ago? It's not possible.

I see myself as anybody, as everybody; I'm not just telling the story of my life to give the reader a picture of who I am.

Changing your mind is probably one of the most beautiful things people can do. And I've changed my mind about a lot of things over the years.

It often happens that things are other than what they seem, and you can get yourself into trouble by jumping to conclusions.

Some things get written more quickly than others, but I can't really measure degrees of difficulty.

I would say that Edgar Allan Poe, [Georges] Perec, Thomas Pynchon, and [Jorge Luis] Borges are all boy-writers. These are writers who take... a kind of demonic joy in writing.

Everyone reads a different book. That's what's interesting. Everyone sees a different film, as well. We bring our past lives to whatever work of art we're experiencing at that moment, and that's what makes it interesting. It's not mathematics. There are different answers for different people.