The little boy I watched throwing pebbles into the empty fountain [...] You could tell that he had too much wisdom for his age. Probably he believed … - Nicole Krauss

When I got older I decided I wanted to be a real writer. I tried to write about real things. I wanted to describe the world, because to live in an undescribed world was too lonely.

Sometimes I forget that the world is not on the same schedule as I. That everything is not dying, or that if it is dying it will return to life, what with a little sun and the usual encouragement.

Years of writing novels in an instinctive, improvisatory way — without a plan, let alone a destination — taught me something about the value of sustaining uncertainty. Of asking questions, rather than pursuing answers. About the discoveries, epiphanies, and surprises one arrives at in this way, and the wonder that follows. After a while, it begins to move from a practice in one's writing and reading to a practice in one's own life, I think.