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.

Since it's fiction, the book resonates, at least for me, on various levels, some of which intimate ideas about history but none of which have the kind of directly causal reasoning you cite.

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

I do not enjoy the promotional side of being a writer, to be blunt about it. Even with the little amount that is expected of me, which is nothing compared to the life of an artist. Writers can live in obscurity and come out of the woodwork with a book, then go back in. Artists don’t have that luxury.

To be alive is to listen quietly while other people talk. That's how you learn something.

The kids I knew growing up who worked on bikes all loved the smell of gas. It is the liquid agent for speed.

My natural orientation has never been among a community of writers, really. For some reason my social world has always been in the art world.