Lot of stories in deceit, how characters deceive other people, but most of all, I think, how they deceive themselves. We're not as tricky as we think we are.

I write when I have something to say and not when I don't. My time is better spent if I know I have nothing to say. I don't consider it writer's block; I just don't have anything to say.

I think that maybe happy families don't need stories the way unhappy families need stories. Maybe they're too busy living that they don't actually step back and talk about life like the Anton Chekhov quote. I prefer Anton Chekhov to Lev Tolstoy, and the reason is because of what he leaves out. Sometimes I think Tolstoy had a theory that he was proving and he proved it. Chekhov is more ambiguous.

I've spent a lot of time in prisons, first doing legal work and later, teaching.

I feel like there are too many words in the world, and I think silence is so much more powerful than the glut of words.

Actually, you’re not famous at all. Maybe you’ll get some traction after you’re dead?

I try not to read my own books just because I would rather read somebody else.