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

I sort of hate the novel when it doesn't push, restlessly, against the tradition and the traditional.

I am a better writer for having fewer demons, and I am more curious about the world and the people in it. So those of you thinking you might need your demons in order to be creative: I beg to differ.

Updike worked this way, and I just kinda borrowed it from him. So the memoir will be relief from novel writing for a moment.

The idea to make hotel reviews the form of the novel came first. So I just started writing hotel reviews and tried to come up with a consistent voice.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

Maybe when I'm sixty-five I'll talk about my literary life.