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 like to think each writer is doing his or her part. Feeding the lake, as Jean Rhys said. And maybe there are different lakes.

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

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

Eventually, I decided that if I was going to really write a novel, I couldn't do it in New York City while holding down a job. You need a constant money source to live in New York City unless you're independently wealthy, which I'm not.

I'm releasing myself from the responsibility of claiming to know when something is good and when it isn't.

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.