“I don’t think anybody’s ever written a song called, “There’s urine on the couch, and the remote control is in the shower.” I would write it myself, but I’ve never been very good at writing love ballads.”

“My books have all been very deeply felt. You don’t spend eight years of your life working on a trendy knockoff. In that sense I’ve been serious. But I don’t do lots of things that other serious writers do. I don’t write book reviews. I don’t sit on panels about the state of the novel. I don’t go to writer conferences. I don’t teach writing seminars. I don’t hang out at Yaddo or MacDowell. I’m not concerned with my reputation as a writer and where I stand relative to other writers. I’m not competitive or professionally ambitious. I don’t think about my work and my career in an overarching or systematic way. I don’t think about myself, as I think most writers do, as progressing toward some ideal of greatness. There’s no grand plan. All I know is that I write the books I want to write. All that other stuff is meaningless to me.”

“I write under not only the presumption that everything I write is deeply conditioned by everything I’ve already written, but that everything I write changes, retroactively, all those things I’ve already written.”

“Did the Ancient Greeks ever write anything funny—like slapstick? I mean, I think I speak for everyone when I say that there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of well-written physical comedy.”

“I’m an idiot for thinking that one performance would change anything.Maybe I should stop writing songs and start writing fiction.”

“I would go to jail with only boys. Just to prove I was as tough as you. And when I get out for good behavior, I'll be writing love songs. Silly banging knee songs.”