God knows, I watch my fair share of movies and television, and they're powerful in their own ways. But I think fiction is more powerful. [It's certainly] a more powerful anodyne for loneliness. I enjoy TV, but I always feel lonelier after I've watched four hours of it. I feel like I've pretended to be with people but I really haven't. In fiction you both feel like the writer is talking to you and [that] you are intimate with people in a book; you can be inside their heads; you can hear their brains' voice[s]. I'll never be that intimate with anyone in person.
When I'm bored or restless I will watch television. When I want to feel like I'm talking to someone, I will read, and not read anything, I mean stuff that works.
