You want to read a book? That requires introspection. It requires time away from people and time away from the constant need to communicate and to connect.

American fiction is good. It would be nice if somebody read it.

Good fiction makes me turn off all the other parts of my brain, so that I become quiet and submissive, entirely at the mercy of the work at hand.

I always think that good writers should be growing up on the brink of death - it really lets them see mortality very clearly.

I don't have many possessions, apart from my books.

I have a love/hate relationship with just about everything, but certainly with America.

I just want fiction to remain a vital force for entertainment and not just for contemplation. Both things can exist.

I like the map feature on the iPhone that tells me where I am, because I travel a lot.

I think what will happen is that fiction will become more like poetry. As in, the only people who read it will write it.

I'd love to have a 19th Century Russian book club where all the members had to act like the pretentious minor noblemen they were reading about.

If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch.

That's what I always liked about science fiction - you can make the world end. Humour is my multiple warhead delivery system.

The best thing about the iPhone is this that tells me where I am all the time. There's never a need to feel lost anymore.

When civilization takes a nose dive, how can you look away? You've got to be there. You've got to be at the bottom of the swimming pool taking notes.

Without humor, I cannot go on and I doubt many of my readers would go on either. Humor is so important. I am here to have fun here with my work.

A lot of the ways of advertising a book - the cover, whether somebody sees it on a subway or sees it in a bookstore - those things are going to rapidly diminish as we move to an electronic model.

Communications devices were always used to effect change, to effect revolution. Telephone, telegraph - these all seemed like very big enhancements at the time.

I love Paul Giamatti - God, that man is like a walking Chekhov. His connection to humanity is unbelievable, and those feelings of low self-esteem - the way that all comes together on the screen? Delicious.

I love things on the decline because that's really the natural progression of our lives. We're born, we're feisty for the first couple of years, and then the inevitable decline begins.

I read real books. On paper. You know, those printed books? I feel like this is the last thing I do to support my industry. I think they smell great, too.