Dave Eggers

I don't think that a moral and a work of art are sort of like can coexist.

I would say they're both everyday occurrences.

You definitely know sometimes I have to flesh out this character.

I'm doing this today no matter what.

And in doing that, you realize like, oh, they had this stepfather that they used to live with and he was in the merchant marine.

This thing pops into the page all of a sudden and there's nothing better, really.

I know the characters in this new book that I had not planned on at all.

That like, they're there suddenly because I'm typing.

I'm really not a mystical, like I'm not superstitious or anything.

I really feel like generally we're in control of what we're doing there.

But sometimes things, you are catching up to what's going on in your head and you can just barely type it fast enough.

And those are really fun.

Those characters actually become...

really different in your mind and kind of more beloved because they arrived unannounced and without much of your own doing.

Always.

So I've been looking through all these old papers and I had a high school teacher named Peter Ferry, who was just like my favorite guy and really funny guy.

You know, the teachers that like Monty Python, when you are obsessed with Monty Python, like forever, that's your guy.

And so we stayed in touch.

And even when I started writing books, I would send him each book before it came out so he could grade it.

I found all my manuscripts from Peter Ferry the other day.