I think it's more difficult writing what it's like to be a child. You can pretend you know what it's like, but you don't really know. The only parts I can remember is that the adults were like, "Aren't they cute?" But when you're little you're looking at the other kids like they're your colleagues. They're not like, "Oh, we're all cute little kids." They're more like your office acquaintances. It's very hard to grasp the memories of what it actually was like to be a kid.

Whether I'm critically well received, whether or not I sell books - of course it becomes progressively harder to get them published - nevertheless, it's what I do, every day.

Fame is really great in a lot of ways, you know? People are a lot nicer to you. Like, the more famous you are, the more free presents you get. And invitations to really amazing things.

With publicity comes humiliation.

Every book I write, the media just keeps punching me in the face.

On bad days, I think I'd like to be a plastic surgeon who goes to Third World countries and operates on children in villages with airlifts, and then I think, 'Yeah, right, I'm going to go back to undergraduate school and take all the biology I missed and then go to medical school.' No. No.

I don't want my novel to be like Madame Bovary, finely crafted with the life edited out of it. I want my novel to be like a friend telling me a story -- so we go off on thoughts; that's the way it is.