In the case of The Loved One, I was hired to collaborate on an updated version of the book.

Someone wrote a piece about Henry Green in The Partisan Review that was so intriguing that I got one of his novels, Loving, I believe, which was the first that came to attention in the United States.

I don't know why, but I always feel a kind of necessity to write things that are beyond acceptance, that are too offensive or something. For people to read them and say, Ha-ha-ha, very funny. No, we can't print that.

When I finally made it to the set, I spent a lot of time doing damage control on The Magic Christian.

The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock - shock is a worn-out word - but astonish.

You can't do the end of the world in a conventionally dramatic way or Boy Meets Girl way.

I learned not to care ... and to write for an imaginary reader whose tastes were similar to my own.