I am not a sun person at all. I think it's a cancerous poison and I don't want it touching me.

I don't quite see the 20th century as one of chaos. But I believe in certain inevitable outcomes of a materialist nature.

I don't regard the real and true and authentic as something to claim as a moral high ground.

I didn't do a masters in creative writing until I was 26, which is quite old, and then I found myself in New York and I needed money, so I started working full time as an editor.

Authenticity is too big a subject to just toss in with the question about the photographs!

It's really a misconception to identify the writer with the main character, given that the author creates all the characters in the book. In certain ways, I'm every character. Then again, there is a huge gap between me as a person and what I do in the novel.

I begin a book with imagery, more than I do with an idea or a character. Some kind of poetic image.