I'm sad that there no more mysterious places in the world.

I think it's a great thing to hear the author reading. I've listened to CDs of Cheever and Updike reading their stories and Hemingway. To hear what their voices were like is amazing. Whether they're reading well or not, it's great to listen to the intonation and the beat of the guy who wrote the story.

Writing is a channeling of an individual experience; so is reading. That's what's so exciting about this art form - it's interactive.

I think if you read all my books you know where I stand, pretty much. You could probably give the reader a questionnaire and they could figure out what I'm about. But I don't think my job is to tell you that.

Pleasure, I remind myself, is inseparable from its lawfully wedded mate, pain.

Basically for me a story can be anything. Anything you tell me, anything I read in the newspaper, in any mode. I don't have any restrictions.

The reason we love nature is because it's fascinating and we love all the creatures, but if you watch any nature film, there's always a lesson: "the creatures are all dying and life sucks." The same is true of literature.