I Thought Of Myself As Kind Of

When I Started, I Wanted To Be Thought Of As Tortured And Seductive, Not Funny, But Humor Tends To Be A Reflexive Part Of A Person's Sensibility. It's An Almost Impossible Thing To Teach Anyone, Which Leads Me To Believe That It's Intuitive.

People Really Want To Believe That There Is No Fiction. I Think They Find It Much Easier To Imagine That Novelists Are Writing Memoirs, Writing About Their Lives, Because It's Difficult To Conceive That There's A Great Imaginary Life In Which You Can Participate.

I've Always Wanted To Be A Poet At The Beginning. I Would Look At My Grandparents' Books And My Parents' Books. And In My Family, A Typical Aspirational Jewish Family, Being A Writer Was Very Much Exalted, And It Seemed Impossible To Me, That I Could Ever Do Something Like That.

Actually What's Worse Than A Dog's Mouth Is A Cat's Mouth. They're Not Dirtier Per Se, But They Have Sharper Teeth, So They Are Much More Likely To Go Deep, Should They Bite You.

My Relationship With My Readers Is Somewhat Theatrical. One Of The Main Things I Try To Do In My Work Is Delight My Readers.