There are things I don't like, like sitting at the head of the class. It makes me uncomfortable. I'll do it in a seminar if I have to, but with a workshop, I try to put myself in the circle somewhere. Because that hopefully frees up some people by making somebody else sit at the nominal head of the table.

It's all the same for me, how I teach, how I write, how I think.

Why are the mainstream buzz things rarely contemporary? It doesn't happen very often. It's hard to feel culpable or implicated or even apathetic.

I forget how beautiful and calm California is. It's not so much about the place, but also the age that I came to the place and, well, other things. New York is hard.

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

Don't write about trying to change the world, just write about a changed world or a world that's not changing. Let that do the work.

I try to be accommodating, but I'm pretty much a loner.