Any gay man in America redeals a deck at some point.
I would write these novels about bullies in school: 'The Bullies: a Novel.'
My own accumulation of influences is actually what made me a writer in the first place.
I'm not despairing of love at all.
I had never heard of 'young adult novels,' which I guess are about teenage gangs and the new boy in town or something.
I think I'm a terrible researcher. I find it very boring and frustrating, but the things you can find are better than what I could imagine. And when you find them, it's wonderful, and they don't feel artificial.
There's a certain point in chemistry and in calculus where I reached the end of my abilities, and I realized, 'This is where I'm stupid.'
Some books inspire one to read, and some inspire one to write; for selfish reasons, I'm always looking for the latter.
'A High Wind in Jamaica' is like those books you used to read under the covers with a flashlight - only infinitely more delicious... and macabre.
My grandmother wore a beehive hairdo even when it was out of fashion.
They say you hit your stride as a writer at about 50. I'm hoping to do that.
There must be times when people look in the mirror and they realize they're 60.
I feel like artists, as much as we'd like to think we're communal, are pretty much loners.
Every writer is an outsider.
Other writers know what you're going through, what you're talking about when you write.
To distract myself from writing, I was singing Bob Dylan's 'My Back Pages.' You know, 'I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now.' I thought, 'I should write a character like that.'
My grandmother was not a great storyteller.
My country is nothing if not diverse.
Some people think of the '50s as a time of innocence, but they are misremembering it or reinventing it: if you look at the papers of the time, they are filled with dread and anxiety.
With each book, I'm trying to do something that terrifies me.
