Maybe Love, Like Suffering, Is Relative.

Sometimes He Thinks That If He Could Only Trace The Path Of His Life Carefully Enough, Everything Would Become Clear. The Ways That He Screwed Up Would Make Sense. He Closes His Eyes Tightly. His Life Wasn't Always A Mistake, He Thinks, And He Breathes Uncertainly For Awhile, Trying To Find A Pathway Into Unconsciousness, Into Sleep.

There Are So Many People We Could Become, And We Leave Such A Trail Of Bodies Through Our Teens And Twenties That It's Hard To Tell Which One Is Us. How Many Versions Do We Abandon Over The Years?

The Feeling Of Being An Outsider, And The Identity Theme, Are Hardwired Into Me. If There's Anything Really Autobiographical In My Fiction, It's That Feeling. I Always Feel That Way.

The Danger In Writing About A World You Don't Know Very Well Is That You Can Get Lost In It, And Sometimes I'll End Up With A Hundred Pages I Don't Know What To Do With.

A Novel Requires A Certain Kind Of World-building And Also A Certain Kind Of Closure, Ultimately. Whereas With A Short Story You Have This Sense That There Are Hinges That The Reader Doesn't See.