Like all enjoyable things, you see, it has unenjoyable parts to it.

Eventually the writing takes time. What I want to do is get the story down and I want to know what happens as I write my way into the knowledge of the story.

I am the Raskolnikov of jerking off – the sticky evidence is everywhere!

You cannot observe people through an ideology. Your ideology observes for you.

I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on. But routinely when I finish a book, I think, "What will I do? Where will I get an idea?" And a kind of low-level panic sets in. And then eventually something happens. I don't know. If I knew how it happened I would repeat the process, but I don't know - something just occurs to me.

You go to someone and you think, 'I'll tell him this.' But why? The impulse is that the telling is going to relieve you. And that's why you feel awful later--you've relieved yourself, and if it truly is tragic and awful, it's not better, it's worse---the exhibitionism inherent to a confession has only made the misery worse.

Stop worrying about growing old. And think about growing up.