It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.
Every generation always thinks it was better before, and I think people have been saying this for probably thousands of years.
Chance is an element of life. What I try to do is study what I call the mechanics of reality as carefully as I can.
You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it's always just one person encountering the book, it's not an audience, it's one to one.
The world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly. We want to feel we are in control of our own existence. In some ways we are, in some ways we're not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence.
I think if we didn't contradict ourselves, it would be awfully boring. It would be tedious to be alive.
Money's important. Everyone cares about money. And when you don't have money, money becomes the overriding obsession of your life.
I've always written by hand. Mostly with a fountain pen, but sometimes with a pencil - especially for corrections.
I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It's the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.
What keeps me up at night? Anxiety. Anxiety, the inability to go to sleep, it's quite literally that.
The most challenging project I've ever done, I think, is every single thing I've ever tried to do. It's never easy. Paul Auster
Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.