On Writing

No one wants to be told what they already know. What is needed is not just a novel that addresses not just contemporary conditions but the effect those conditions have on our own self-image, the ways in which we justify our own actions while all the while a great, unstoppable force carries us forward. It takes a brave, resourceful writer to do

Whenever people jeer at the subject of a novel, there's an impish part of me that goes, Ah, very interesting, I understand your complaint. But what if it was good?