Padgett Powell

I met Donald Barthelme when I was 30, and it's fair to say that before that moment, I was pre-modern, and after I met him, I was nudged rather forcefully towards this other end of the spectrum.

If I slip up and receive a good gift, I will not have given a good gift. This is probably a natural law that affects us all and needs a name. The Gift Reciprocal Law.

I think William Trevor is as good as it gets. Whenever I want a book to do exactly what it says it will, I read him.

My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for?

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.

I'm a big action junkie. I grew up on the '80s action movies - the bad ones and the good ones.