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I trained as a writer before I became a lawyer. I was headed for a life as an English professor, but that just wasn't me. I'm not a scholar; I didn't have a scholar's attitude toward literature.

I kind of want to be seen as an American writer, not just a New York writer.

I'm using my degree. You know, I studied English and American literature in college, and now I'm an American poet.

I consider myself a writer who writes about American expatriates. And if I have any overt cause as a writer besides writing the best prose I can, it's to try to make Americans have a more visceral feeling about how America impacts everybody in the world.

If I don't measure up as an American writer, at least leave me to my delusion.

I don't have the notion that everybody has to write in some single academic style.

I spent four years doing a doctorate in postmodern American literature. I can recognize it when I see it.

I've always tried to write about America. It's very worth a writer's effort.

I think I'm an American writer writing about Latin America, and I'm a Latin American writer who happens to write in English.

I write novels with a lawyer as the hero, no matter how oxymoronic that might sound.