I think almost always that what gets me going with a story is the atmosphere, the visual imagery, and then I people it with characters, not the other way around.

I think that I'm serious, but I don't think that I'm inordinately bleak.

While I would agree that I write about serious subjects, and that they're not necessarily the most pleasant subjects or even the most pleasant people, as a writer I just think about the humorous aspects of these things - that's what keeps me going when I'm writing a story.

Much of what happens in Love Always is really from overheard conversations in the Russian Tea Room. It's an improvisation of the way certain Hollywood agents think and talk to each other.

It's interesting, though, that in daily life, I think of myself as being relatively unobservant.

If you could have a book called My Favorite Six Stories, I don't think I'd have trouble doing that.