I felt my whole life was a facsimile of a life.
With publicity comes humiliation.
I was like a social worker for lepers. My clients had a chunk of their body they wanted to give away; for a price I was there to receive it.
Whether I’m critically well received, whether or not I sell books – of course it becomes progressively harder to get them published – nevertheless, it’s what I do, every day.
On bad days, I think I’d like to be a plastic surgeon who goes to Third World countries and operates on children in villages with airlifts, and then I think, ‘Yeah, right, I’m going to go back to undergraduate school and take all the biology I missed and then go to medical school.’ No. No.
I think the sixties must have been quite a lot of fun.
Brownstein’s is a fresh and jaunty voice, with a jazz snap all his own.
Never Mind Nirvana is the first novel I’ve read that makes music as important as food, clothing romance – a fresh twist millions will be able to identify with – and the music of Lindquist’s language is a perfect match for the subject. I think he’s the writer to watch in the new millennium.
I feel like I sort of missed the eighties. At the time, we didn’t know we were having fun, which is probably the way it always is.
Every book I write, the media just keeps punching me in the face.
Crimes, sins, nightmares, hunks of hair: it was surprising how many of them has something to dispose of. The more I charged, the easier it was for them to breathe freely once more.
As a writer, I don’t think it’s my responsibility to make a point. I just write and hope there’s someone who’ll like it.
Long after the bomb falls and you and your good deeds are gone, cockroaches will still be here, prowling the streets like armored cars.
I don’t want my novel to be like Madame Bovary, finely crafted with the life edited out of it. I want my novel to be like a friend telling me a story – so we go off on thoughts; that’s the way it is.