I'm trying to read more dead people because I keep having to read stuff for juries and so forth.

It's also true, however, that having conquered the regional writer ghetto, I am now intent on conquering the nationalist writer ghetto and moving out into the world more.

The process of composition, messing around with paragraphs and trying to make really good prose, is hardwired into my personality.

I am in Boston right now, in fact, to do work at the New England Historical Genealogical Library, where I'm trying to finish up tracing my lineage back to the seventeenth century.

You need more people to perpetuate a myth because if the people stop the myth is known to all.

I think that's why people like me. I'm not trying to stand out like a super hero.