Everybody, doesn't matter who you are, escapes time. And for me, nothing is stranger than the thought that kids are just kids. Nobody is just anything. Whether you are eight or eighty, you've got your own unique take on how weird this world is.

My characters tend to be people who are looking back on a life lived, their joys, their regrets.

I think some writers should wait for something to say.

If a novel or a story works, you don't stop thinking about it; it doesn't truly end.

I agonize over things like this - the order of things, section titles, all this architectural sort of stuff. Takes me years to figure out.

People have to follow their own strangeness. The minute they start making their own vision of the world flattened out so everyone can read it, they lose. I encourage people to be as awkward and odd on the page to capture their own way of seeing the world and not trying to see the world for other people.

Maybe my work is somewhat divided into family stories, things I know intimately, and then everybody else in the world - the strangers who I am totally fascinated with.