There are some people who have the quality of richness and joy in them and they communicate it to everything they touch. It is first of all a physical quality; then it is a quality of the spirit.

Let some people get rich first.

I do novels a bit backward. I look for a situation, a milieu first, and then I wait to see who walks into it.

First I was a European-style player, then I was a downtown 'noise guy,' and now some people call me an Americana guy.

Fortunately, the world is full of people with information compulsion who want to tell you their stories. They want to tell you things that you don't know. They're some of the greatest allies that any writer has.

First of all, tabloid stories are some of the richest and most important stories that we have. There's nothing wrong, per se, with tabloid stories.