Dave Eggers

I think just like I wanted it to be about their whole lives, but I was bored thinking about having to describe every year, you know, allowing yourself to jump 10 years each time.

It's such a simple thing, but it hadn't occurred to me.

Yeah.

It's always a simple thing.

I know.

I felt so dumb when it popped into my head.

It's not like no one's ever done it before, but it liberated me.

Suddenly all the baggage was, you know, it's like a hot air balloon where you dump the sandbags off and you're alone.

So great.

And I think so much of the time you are, you're losing things as opposed to putting more in.

Yeah.

The solution often is less.

And there are themes and ideas and all of these things woven into a novel.

But it's a form where these things come and go in the flow of...

of a vast, meandering river that you're traveling down, and you don't get out of the river and say, oh, I know, I should always be barefoot now.

You know, like some, but these days, there is a little bit more that's been sort of entering into the, what do you want readers to take away?

It's just like, it's everywhere now, especially with picture books.

I write books for kids too, and...

Maurice Sendak was a guy that Spike and I used to work with, and he was so adamant about that books should not have morals.

And for kids too, even though he did some that had kind of some messages, but it's a different form.