Books are medicine and you have to take the right medicine that you need at that moment or that day or that time in your life.

My weapon has always been language, and I've always used it, but it has changed. Instead of shaping the words like knives now, I think they're flowers, or bridges.

Packing is important because a lot of times I have to go places where I have to be in four different climates in three weeks. For example, Bosnia, Ireland, Rome. Different parts of Italy. You have to pack and get it down to a science.

When you edit, you imagine your enemy is seated on the other side of the table. Your enemy! And your enemy is going to read that with a viciousness, because he knows where you didn't work on it. He's going to shake it and really aim for that jugular. So you are going to polish, and revise, and rewrite, and cut out, and shape it, so that your enemy has no place to grip it. That's how you revise.

If you live in poor neighborhoods - I know from living in several poor neighborhoods - the worst supermarkets in the city are in the poorest neighborhoods, where people don't have cars.

To this day, on my cheat days from my diet, which are New Year's Eve and my birthday, I buy luxury foods that are very indicative of my class.

I have this great fear of Mexico City. I won't go to Mexico City unless someone meets me at the airport and is with me. I just feel very vulnerable there.