I'm intrigued by how ordinary behavior exists so close beside its opposite.

I don't have a very logical and orderly mind.

Most things don't stay the way they are very long.

The ways in which things are superficially similar but also distinct is interesting to me.

They may already know too much about their mother and father--nothing being more factual than divorce, where so much has to be explained and worked through intelligently (though they have tried to stay equable). I've noticed this is often the time when children begin calling their parents by their first names, becoming little ironists after their parents' faults. What could be lonelier for a parent than to be criticized by his child on a first-name basis?

I wouldn't be a very good writer if someone hadn't taught me how to read.

I'm not one of those people who as a writer lets my characters tell me what they want to do or call to me or seek me. I go seeking for things, using them as an agent, really.