we need ghost stories because we, in fact, are the ghosts.

I never have a thematic intention at the outset. The story informs the theme for me rather than the other way around. But as it happens... this is, at least to a degree, about getting old and the rapid passage of our lives.

I think reality is thin, you know, thin as lake ice after a thaw, and we fill our lives with noise and light and motion to hide that thinness from ourselves.

Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction. If not so, why do so many couples who start the evening at dinner wind up in bed?

You say true, I say thankya.

Only two things happen to writers when they die: Either their work survives, or it becomes forgotten.

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.