I'm a very interior person. I love silence. I revel in it. I'm happy that way.

I had been thinking about rubber all along. Like as the novel's element, or base material. A lot of artists in the late '60s and early '70s worked with rubber and other forms that seemed like they connoted industrial detritus. Robert Morris, Eva Hesse.

I’d been listening to men talk since I arrived in New York City. That’s what men like to do. Talk. Profess like experts. When one finally came along who didn’t say much, I listened.

The novel is a big space, and a lot can happen. Just think about the parts of your life. How do we account for our own contradictions? The only way to understand them is to let them exist, as truths that indicate something about character. People are built of elements that don't fit together - and the conflict of that is their essential drive.

There is no real appeal for me in an image of a woman on a motorcycle.

People who experience themselves as authentic are also experiencing themselves as myth, but that's not the narrative they're going with.

The desire for love is universal but that has never meant it’s worthy of respect. It’s not admirable to want love, it just is.