I had one week in the fall of 1996 where I was like, 'I'm America's greatest living teenage poet.'

In graduate school, I was a student of E.L. Doctorow, and he had us read 'Moby-Dick' in a week.

The reason we can say anything we want in America is that we know it makes no difference.

I think several generations of my family had novels in the drawer. You know the montage in 'The Royal Tenenbaums' where each character has produced some sort of minor work? It was like having a magician in the household.

I had a major bug for cities and for paintings and literature and all the things I thought went on in cities.

The ego being shattered is not what frightens me - that can be useful for writing - but the ego being inflated is sort of like it dying of gout.