Elif Batuman

The first thing I tried to write was a novel, when I took that time off in grad school. Then I didn't finish it. I went back to school, and then I started writing nonfiction kind of by accident.

Everyone has a certain amount of bad writing to get out of their system.

Imagination is really dependent on memory and observation, these things that we think of as part of nonfiction writing, actually.

You base your actions on a projected ending, which you actually don't know. However, when you reach the crucial point, and the pinnacle event doesn't occur, you just need to go on, and something else will happen.

A lot of what I write is very personal.