I don't do much more than organise other people's ideas and insights and thoughts, and sort of harvest them, and inventory them and present them.
I'm always trying to reach a transcendent point, a romantic point, but reach it in a really unconventional way, a really profane way. To get to that romantic, touching, heartbreaking place, but through a lot of acts of profanity.
Portland in particular is a cheap enough place to live that you can still develop your passion - painting, writing, music. People seem less status-conscious. Even wealthy people buy second-hand clothes and look a little bit homeless.
I'm trying to make order out of chaos, trying to find some way of rationalising the horrific things that people do or the way the world is.
We're so much more likely to feel sympathy for an animal than another person; thus, the best fiction uses animals to define truly humane behavior.
If there had been zombies on the iceberg when the Titanic hit it, that would have made a much better movie.
I haven't had television since 1991, and it definitely influences me. As a child of the 1970s, I couldn't hold a narrative in my head; I was lucky if I could hold a joke in my head, because every time you turn on television or radio, it wipes the slate clean - at least in my case.
Men want to make the best use of time and want to see how something can inform them and give them a stronger sense of power.
My teacher Tom Spanbauer, the man who got me started writing in his workshop, used to say: 'Writers write because they weren't invited to a party.' That always struck so true, and people always nod their heads when they hear that. Especially writers.
Verbs allow you to communicate a story in a much more converged or involuntary way for a reader. The verbs allow you to come in under the radar, below people's defenses.
I like to get people moving and jumping. I think it's good to add more emotion and chaos.
My way of being with people is probably incredibly unhealthy, in that I'll be incredibly social, and I won't write a word for maybe a year, and I'll just be with people, going to parties and soaking up stories, and just sort of recharging all of my ideas.
I usually write in my kitchen, which is a large, octagonal room that looks into woods - three big windows look out into the trees.
Portland is quickly becoming one of those lovely, lush Third World countries where kinda-rich people retire with their money.
When I visit my brother in South Africa, I order things I've only seen in zoos. Little deers and kudu, all the mammals you would never think of eating.
Some of the best ideas I get seem to happen when I'm doing mindless manual labor or exercise. I'm not sure how that happens, but it leaves me free for remarkable ideas to occur.
My books didn't fit a marketing niche.
You realize you have no control over how you're perceived.
You can tell a more over-the-top incredible story if you use a nonfiction form.
I have a lot of fans who are in the prison system, where ramen noodles are a kind of staple. Prisoners are always sending me recipes.
