Author

I started out writing stories because that's all I wanted to read, but now I don't know if I'll ever write one again.

A ten- or twelve-page story seems too easy, which is a funny thing to say considering that writing a decent short story is devastatingly difficult. Yet it still seems easier than a novel. You can turn a short story on a single good line - ten pages of decent writing and one good moment.

I think Bellow's the greatest American writer of his century, personally. When I read him, I'm in awe.

One of my favorite ways to find fictional inspiration, by the way, is to browse historical timelines. I also like world atlases - any country with a squiggly coastline seems to inspire me, as do visual dictionaries, those reclusive creatures of the reference shelf.

You know that thing people say, 'poetry is the hardest, stories are the second hardest, novels are the easiest?' I'm here to tell you that novels are the hardest. Writing a novel is unbelievably difficult. It's nightmarish.

I really enjoy the immediacy of the 'knife and gun clubs,' as they're so callously called. Emergency is a great place to learn about people.

Any writer who says he loves writing is crazy. Or lying.

You have to look at the value of different kinds of words. Adjectives weaken, and adverbs come even farther down the line. Verbs are strong; verbs and nouns.

I don't have a pen name, so I'm thinking of getting a doctor's name. What would you call that, a stethoscope name?

My idea of teaching literature is just to read great passages aloud or to look at it the way a writer does, which is what I try to do. Which is to say, 'How does this writer do this? How did he order his scenes? Do you notice any pattern to his sentences?'

Fame is a problem of perspective.

I like writing about the evil lurking in apparently good people.

When I went for my medical school interview, I had an old paperback of 'Henderson the Rain King' in the pocket of my coat. I was wearing the best clothes I had - a pair of cords and a sport coat - but when I got to the office, all the other interviewees were lined up in their black suits.

Medicine ended up being the best thing I ever did for my writing.

In medicine, there's a fairly large but still finite body of knowledge that you need at hand for most of your daily work. It takes a few years to learn it, but once it's there, it's there. With writing, on the other hand, every new book - indeed, every new story - is a fresh and terrifying reinvention of everything.

It's safe to say that all poets are manic-depressives, but fiction writers are on that scale, too.

I think that's what poets try to do: They try to sidestep neurology and go straight to meaning.

Why say 'utilize' when you can say 'use'?

I think even great writers only write two books that you might like. When I think of my touchstone writers like Saul Bellow, I think of 'Henderson the Rain King.' With Don DeLillo, I think of 'Libra.'

I have a very bad memory. I can't remember my own life very well.