I actually went into writing first to supplement my income, which was a strange thing to do and actually failed.

As an artist you can use your own discomfort and neuroses and difficulties and at least transform them into something else. Without that you're just neurotic and uncomfortable.

After all, memory may be the only thing on earth we can truly manipulate to serve us, so we don't have to look back at ourselves in the receding past and think, What an arsehole!

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.

Don't be afraid to have nothing.

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.

People carry their secrets in hidden places, not on their faces. They carry suffering on their faces. Also bitterness if there’s room.