I am influenced by books which dont have their eye on the endgame, but which try to be entertaining on each and every page.

I have that sort of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David/George Costanza thing where people are like, "How did you feel writing such an unlikable character?" And I'm like, "It's me! I based him on myself!" There are certain moments where they do feel like unwittingly personal attacks.

You experience life alone, you can be as intimate with another as much as you like, but there has to be always a part of you and your existence that is incommunicable; you die alone, the experience is yours alone, you might have a dozen spectators who love you, but your isolation, from birth to death, is never fully penetrated.

I was so happy I wanted to fold all the people into paper airplanes and fly them into the lidless eye of that big yellow moon.

There are authors like David Foster Wallace or Raymond Chandler - with voice-based authors I might end up a completist, because what I love about them isn't just the particular construction of one novel or another but their flavor. There is an Austrian writer, Thomas Bernhard, as well. One book is not necessarily greater than another book, but they just have this incredible, unique voice, so it doesn't really matter which one you read.

Raymond Chandler I love a lot, and the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard. I really love his voice.

The universe doesn't really care if you bounce back. It doesn't feel that weird to write about paralysis or being in hospital or losing a child or, you know, splitting up with your wife, because that's just life.