Writer

I envy those writers who outline their novels, who know where they're going. But I find writing is a process of discovery.

Most of the people I write about have been ambitious outlanders who have been attracted to New York from other parts of the world.

Sometimes I think everything I touch turns into a Page Six item.

I love to imagine inside the head of a woman.

Sometimes I think everything I touch turns into a Page Six item.

My former wife is a very eccentric woman, which is why I still love her.

I've been interested in writing and storytelling since I learned to read, but it wasn't until I read Dylan Thomas, when I was 14, that I became interested in language itself, and saw it as more than a transparent medium for a story.

Publishers send me a lot of first novels because my first novel was the defining novel of my career, and I guess a lot of people want my benediction or something.

There is a type of writer that can happily bury themselves in the country and dig very deep, but I'm not like that.

There is a type of writer that can happily bury themselves in the country and dig very deep, but I'm not like that.

I like the fact that I'm living in the world rather than in a university.

When you catch yourself lying to your therapist, you know it's a waste of money.

The most interesting things that happen in my books are usually the things that arise spontaneously, the things that surprise me.

I'm a romantic; you have to be to marry four times.

You know, I'm always surprised when I read profiles, and they make me sound so jaded. I am so not jaded.

I don't think I've left a trail of weeping women in my wake. I mean, the number of serious relationships I've had has not been into double digits.

A creative writing program is only as good as its teachers, and I was fortunate in having two great writers as mentors.

Mine is not an autonomous imagination.

I think a lot of the people who write about me think that if they had to write fewer interviews then they would transcribe their life-story and it would be a big success. Or should be.

'Socialist' is the nastiest thing you can say about an American politician in some quarters.