I get and read an enormous number of first novels.

It's possible to overlook character flaws of in-laws for the simple reason that you feel neither responsible for them nor genetically implicated.

It's no secret that in my books I'm trying to make the comic and the serious rub up against each other just as closely and uncomfortably as I can.

I can be glib and truthful all at once.

They stayed, many of them, because staying was easier and less scary than leaving.

Worse, I have to admit to feeling the jealousy of one crab for another that has managed to climb out of the barrel.

If my career continues along its current arc, people will probably look at me and see a writer who is obsessed with the relationship between rich and poor and with how the rich somehow or other always manage to betray the poor, even when they don't mean to.