It's amazing how life conspires to set you up with what you need.

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

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

I have spent a lot of time in the art world, and I guess I do listen to how people speak. I'm interested in what they say and how they say it.

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.