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" If you're not riddled with doubt, you've probably done something wrong. "

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" After school, I got a job in a shop in Hollywood and shared an apartment with a friend. I promptly lost my job and got evicted from my apartment, and that happened several times. "

" I was halfway through a rough draft of 'The Sisters Brothers' when it came time to start the 'Terri' adaptation. "

" I have a paranoia that 'Ablutions' is the best thing I'll ever do. "

" My instinct is to write under the cloak of an opaque historical setting. "

" A lot of my favourite books - I should say, not much happens in the books! It's much more about the points of view of the author more than anything else. "

" The question of likability is a bit of a puzzler for me. You know, I don't write people with likability in mind. It's more whether or not I find them compelling. "

" I was reading my son some fables; it made for good nighttime reading. These stories were very vivid and very strange and occasionally bizarrely violent. It was a very free landscape. "

" I think of myself as somebody who, in a moment-to-moment way, I'm quite happy. But I think I am a bit doubtful and wary of true happiness, and, like a lot of my friends, there's been a good degree of self-sabotage. "

" I'm not an enormous proponent of plot as a reader. It's about other things; my reading has become specialized over the years. "

" I had no plan to write a western novel, and when I realized it was happening, I was pretty surprised by it. But you have to go with what feels right. "

" Some deeper part of me wants to write comical dialogue; I'd be foolish to not follow that impulse. Now I recognize that if there's energy to a section of work, you go where the energy is. It's a living thing, and you just follow it. "

" My interest in words and literature is always changing. And every day of work is different, and it doesn't feel laborious in the way that, say, washing dishes did. I'm quite happy to be doing what I'm doing, and I feel very lucky. "

" I don't necessarily want to make people stomp and clap. I simply want to engage people. "

" I felt like love has been underrepresented - unironic love, just actually really falling in love. "

Falling In Love

" The question about my Canadianness comes up a lot, and I'm never quite sure what to say about it. I've carved a life out for myself in Oregon, and it feels like home, not because it's the States but because that's where my friends are and where my son is. "

" A lot of authors, judging by their list, will put anything out that they finish... That's the worst model I've heard of in my life. It's just idiotic. Why wouldn't you just wait for the good ones? "

" After 'The Sisters Brothers,' I tried to write a contemporary story dealing with an investment adviser in New York City who moves to Paris. I did all this research, but after about a year and any number of pages written, I was bored stiff. "

" I'm either enjoying myself or I'm not. And if I'm not enjoying myself, something's gone terribly wrong. "

" Certain writers look down their noses at plot, and I think I might have been one of them until I tried it. "

" The reason I like Portland is the idea of going to a supermarket and knowing there's no way to be recognized. L.A. is so social. "

" I haven't read hardly any Westerns, to tell you the truth. "

" I don't know that I'd call myself an optimist. "

" The idea is this: It's important to upset one's work habits, to topple the cart for each project. "

" I wouldn't want to write a biography of anyone. I'd feel too inhibited by the facts and too much pressure to do the subject's life justice. "

" Whenever we changed schools, we had to make a new set of friends. At the time, of course, I hated it. But looking back now, I'm really glad I did, because it forces independence on you. "

" I understand the desire to write and read about the death of publishing. It's a perversely and universally appealing topic. "

" When you meet someone you love, whether or not they love you back, something occurs in you that makes you want to improve yourself. "

" I'm never doing anything by rote. I'm only on thin ice, and I think that that's a good place to be. I feel like when you push yourself like that, the rewards can be pretty great. "

" The initial spark, your affection for the characters, all those things can disappear. It's a perilous thing. "

" Many's the dead author whose body of work has been marred by overzealous publishers or family members. If this happens to me, I vow to seek out the responsible parties and haunt them to the point of death. "