I judged about a zillion awards this year so Ive been reading a lot of books that just came out.

I believe in the absolute and unlimited liberty of reading. I believe in wandering through the stacks and picking out the first thing that strikes me. I believe in choosing books based on the dust jacket.

I suppose that the sympathetic/unsympathetic debate about characters sometimes feels to me like a misstatement of purpose. I always think of truly complex characters are falling between the cracks in that debate.

Major theme of the book ["Hotels of North America"], from my point of view: what is persona, what is self, in the digital sphere, and/or what is the effect of it on self in a prolonged interaction.

The process of composition, messing around with paragraphs and trying to make really good prose, is hardwired into my personality.

I suppose I should say that I treasure blasphemy, as a faith of the highest order.

Tangled in one another's arms and nine times out of ten the things you think about a person make it impossible to touch them.