The Job Of The Novel Is To

I Would Like To Visit The Factory That Makes Train Horns, And Ask Them How They Are Able To Arrive At That Chord Of Eternal Mournfulness. Is It Deliberately Sad? Are The Horns Saying, Be Careful, Stay Away From This Train Or It Will Run You Over And Then People Will Grieve, And Their Grief Will Be As The Inconsolable Wail Of This Horn Through The Night? The Out-of-tuneness Of The Triad Is Part Of Its Beauty.

I Don't Do All That Well In The Writerly World. I'm Happier Being Outside The Flow.

Wikipedia Is Just An Incredible Thing. It Is Fact-encirclingly Huge, And It Is Idiosyncratic, Careful, Messy, Funny, Shocking And Full Of Simmering Controversies - And It Is Free, And It Is Fast.

I Wanted My First Novel To Be A Veritable Infarct Of Narrative Cloggers-the Trick Being To Feel Your Way Through Each Clog By Blowing It Up Until Its Obstructiveness Finally Reveals Not Blank Mass But Unlooked-for Seepage Points Of Passage.

History Isn't A Seesaw. If You Have A Really Bad Regime On One Side, The Actions On The Other Side Don't Automatically Become Good. It Doesn't Work That Way.