Is that what we mean by life? Let everything fall away, and then let’s see what there is. Perhaps that is the most interesting question of all: to see what happens when there is nothing, and whether or not we will survive that too.

In my books, there are a lot of people stuck in rooms. Or, conversely, out in the wide open. It seems that, in a funny way, when people are cooped up in rooms they are freer than when they are wandering about in the world.

You can look at my autobiographical pieces as source books... But, you see, my fiction doesn't revolve around autobiographical questions.

The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was 'Crime and Punishment'. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days... I said, 'If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.'

I've written books that have taken me fifteen years, from first sentence to last, and some that only take three or four months.

Books demand more. You have to be a more active participant.

I write different kinds of sentences, depending on what the book is, and what the project is. I see my work evolving. I'm writing long sentences now, something I didn't use to do. I had some kind of breakthrough, five or six years ago, in Invisible, and in Sunset Park after that. I discovered a new way to write sentences. And I find it exhilarating.

Actually, screenplays were much more detailed than what I did in the book In the book I had to invent a style for communicating what the sensation of looking at a film would be, whereas the screenplays I wrote in Paris were actual blueprints for how to do the film, with every gesture, every little movement noted in exhaustive detail.

One should never underestimate the power of books.