I feel like one can have all of that as a writer; you're writing, you're reading, you're talking to interesting and intelligent people. Your life is structured around whatever book you're writing, and so is your reading and so are many of your conversations.

We don't know the effects we have on each other, but we have them.

Writing fiction is a good way to inhabit other minds, if not other lives.

I kind of try to resist working a lot. I'm not a very disciplined worker.

My parents are both scientists, and I was raised without god.

There was not an awareness of pop culture in the household. There was a lot of respect for working hard, and for intellectual and professional achievement.

You have to know where the funny is, and if you know where the funny is, you know everything.