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.

If you're concentrating so damn hard on a piece of mathematics or a musical - a piece of music or a piece of art, the restraint that holds the rest of - the rest of the world back off and vanishes in the rest of your life.

Doubt is the enemy of mania. It's trying to get aloft strung with weights. The moment I like writing is three sentences in, when somehow those weights drop away, and you can invent. I cannot tell you the dread I have.

Bausch is a wonderful storyteller. He's a mature writer who has a lot of confidence in the quality of character. He doesn't need to hook you with a sneaky plot and zany characters.

I finished 'America America,' and I knew I had to write another book, not just for personal reasons but because I had a contract.