Making art was really about the problem of the soul, of losing it. It was a technique for inhabiting the world. For not dissolving into it.

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.

People who are harder to love pose a challenge, and the challenge makes them easier to love. You're driven to love them. People who want their love easy don't really want love.

I was a child but weirdly uninhibited. I talked to people and inserted myself in all kinds of absurd situations. I think some of those life experiences influenced me in terms of the main character of The Flamethrowers. But for the parts where the community of artists are speaking above her level of participation, that probably came more out of my experience of being in New York in the '90s as an adult.

For me, truth cracks open in the places where things do not cohere. That's how life is.

It's unfortunately true that if you mess up a single detail of the art world the whole thing seems false, and most writers are not in a position to get the details right, because they don't hang around with artists. It's not something you can get the vague gist of. It's too specific.

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.