My Idea With My Work Is Always

When You Are A Child, You Often Stare Too Closely At The Wrong Thing. I Remember The First Time I Was Taken To Yankee Stadium. Someone Had Spilled Something Sweet Earlier In The Day And The Ground Was Covered With Ants. I Spent The Whole Game Staring At The Ants, And That Was More Fascinating Than The Game.

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.

As Far As What I Do, My Value As A Writer Is Certainly Not To Try To Recapitulate A 19th Century Form. Certain Styles Of Narrative Don't Conform To My Style Of Experiencing The World.