The books turn out to be about things afterwards. I don't go into them with concepts, for the most part..

This is what we bear, I thought, the nearness of other lives..

If he acts, if he doesn't, it's meaningless. The whole thing goes forward. No one is important. No one at all..

I have a very basic notion of the structure the book might have - that's mostly it. The rest is luck and happenstance..