It's the writer's job to disarm the reader of his logic, to just make the reader feel.

There's a beauty to math. Math is so simple. It's just one step after the next.

Bausch is a wonderful storyteller. He's a mature writer who has a lot of confidence in the quality of character. He doesn't need to hook you with a sneaky plot and zany characters.

I finished 'America America,' and I knew I had to write another book, not just for personal reasons but because I had a contract.

I'm becoming more of a novelist as I get older. The novel just seems the truer form. There's less artifice involved.

John Cheever was the first writer I ever read who sort of had that similar sensation that, you know, life is nasty, miserable, brutish and short, but that occasionally, there's a certain river of light, a kind word, a telling gesture that sort of illuminates something.