I don't like gurus. I don't like people who ask you to follow or believe. I like people who ask you to think independently.

I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me, but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is.

If a novelist tells you something she knows or thinks, and you believe her, that is not because either of you think she is God, but because she is doing her work - as a novelist.

America is full of readers of all different sorts who love books in many different ways, and I keep meeting them. And I think editors should look after them, and make less effort to please people who don't actually like books.

I like to write about painting because I think visually. I see my writing as blocks of color before it forms itself. I think I also care about painting because I'm not musical. Painting to me is not a metaphor for writing, but something people do that can never be reduced to words.

I don't understand why, in my work, writing is always so dangerous. It's very destructive. People who write books are destroyers.