I do think that just about whenever I am writing, or more accurately, whenever I have written, I feel better and more at peace as a human being. That doesn't mean, unfortunately, that the literary product is any good.

I turned forty, and Im finally going to get married and maybe have a kid.

I am in Boston right now, in fact, to do work at the New England Historical Genealogical Library, where I'm trying to finish up tracing my lineage back to the seventeenth century.

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.

God howls with laughter at earthly plans, you know?

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

I don't know exactly how long the book as we know it will exist, but I fully expect to make it to my death without having to give up on books.