I'm hugely honored [with the Man Booker Prize].

Sometimes I would get frustrated, I'd think, "You know, this is a good book, how come no one is paying attention to it?" So it's nice to have some recognition.

I remember going to see Amiri Baraka. It wasn't actually too long before he died. He said, "You've got to write to change the world!" I was like, "Not me, no, no, no, no."

I read an interview with a Japanese freestyle jazz musician once, and he said something like, "Everything I'm going to tell you is not going to be true." He's not saying, "I'm trying to lie to you." But he's kind of saying that you can never say what something really is.

I co-taught a seminar called Small Group Processes with my professor. I learned so much from it, so much about myself, about groups, how this stuff works. I bring all that stuff to teaching now.

We don't act the same in every situation. Things bleed into all kinds of other things, from behavior to identity.

I don't write to put it in a drawer, I hope that people see it.