I love opera. I love jazz, especially Mingus. This makes me sound highbrow. I'm not.

Pity sidesteps complexity in favor of narratives that we're comfortable with, reducing the nuances of a person's experience to a sound bite.

I love writing. It makes me so happy.

I was studying with Peter Carey, Colum McCann; but also, my fellow students were really critical readers for me.

I don't believe in any Greatest Generation. I believe in great events. They sweep ordinary people up, expose them to extremes of human behavior and unimaginable tests of integrity and courage, and then deposit them back on the home front.

I write in coffee shops, libraries, parks, museums. I get antsy and then get on my bike and go someplace else, letting the ideas spin around in my head as I dodge taxis.