When I come home, I say I'm coming home to Dublin. When I'm in Dublin, I say I'm going home to New York. I'm sort of a man of two countries.

In a certain way, novelists become unacknowledged historians, because we talk about small, tiny, little anonymous moments that won't necessarily make it into the history books.

I mean, every novel's a historical novel anyway. But calling something a historical novel seems to put mittens on it, right? It puts manners on it. And you don't want your novels to be mannered.

The short story is an imploding universe. It has all the boil of energy inside it. A novel has shrapnel going all over the place. You can have a mistake in a novel. A short story has to be perfect.

I'm just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I'm inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.

To put up a show is to face life's injustices with one of the few weapons available to a desperate and brave people, their imagination.

My first break was becoming a staff writer on the rebooted '90210.' And then I got stuck writing in the teen genre for a while.

Playing shows is really fun. And writing music is really fun. But going on tour for a year is one of the more soul-crushing experiences you can have as a creative person.