[on The Writers She Admires:] I Prefer

I Am A New Yorker. I Like New York. And I Like Cities. And It's Not My Desire To Make New York More Suburban. I Would Personally Just Like To Vet Each Person.

People Who Are Well-known, Famous People, I Think, Make Very Poor Characters For Fiction. They Make Good Characters For Gossip Columns. But Not For Fiction.

Vegetables Are Interesting But Lack A Sense Of Purpose When Unaccompanied By A Good Cut Of Meat.

I Have A Real Aversion To Machines. I Write With A Pen. Then I Read It To Someone Who Writes It Onto The Computer. What Are Those Computer Letters Made Of Anyway? Light? Too Insubstantial. Paper, You Can Feel It. A Pen. There's A Connection. A Pen Goes Exactly At Your Speed, Whereas That Machine Jumps. And Then, That Machine Is Waiting For You, Just Humming "uh-huh, Yes?

When I Was Very Little, Say Five Or Six, I Became Aware Of The Fact That People Wrote Books. Before That, I Thought That God Wrote Books. I Thought A Book Was A Manifestation Of Nature, Like A Tree.