In my family, we can't just sit and be together. We have to be shelling peas or husking corn or something. A larger task. Some way of being with people.

I dread the promotion part of my job. It's agony, especially compared to the private, at-home joy of writing. But being a grown-up means doing every part of the larger task.

People used what they called a telephone because they hated being close together and they were scared of being alone.

My way of being with people is probably incredibly unhealthy, in that I'll be incredibly social, and I won't write a word for maybe a year, and I'll just be with people, going to parties and soaking up stories, and just sort of recharging all of my ideas.

I'm trying to make order out of chaos, trying to find some way of rationalising the horrific things that people do or the way the world is.

People have to deal with their issues together; they have to expose themselves and kind of exhaust themselves.