It costs so much to make films. With a novel, you can write the whole thing on a ream of paper from Staples for $4.

When I'm writing a novel, which is what I like to write, I get up early, sit zazen, make a pot of green tea. I wear wrist cuffs to keep my wrists warm and minimize irritation from extended contact with the surface of my desk. I sit down and write.

I think all characters are facets of the writer. In a way, they have to be if you're going to write them convincingly.

Writing is solitary. You spend so much time alone and in your own mind, telling stories.

When I start writing these novels, I go into them with a spirit of inquiry rather than to substantiate prejudices I had in the beginning. If you don't do that, you can't write good characters.

Even though I was making documentaries, my films had fictional elements to them. I think I like blurring those distinctions because so much of what we see on television purports to be the truth, but it's often largely imaginary - or wishful thinking, or any number of less honorable things.