On moving the action to Las Vegas
That was a marvelous accident, because initially, in the first two or three years of writing the book, it took place completely between New York and Amsterdam, and something was missing. And then, just absolutely by chance I happened to visit Las Vegas. And while I was there, I was in one of the casinos, I think it was the Bellagio, and there was an exhibition of French impressionists ... and when I saw that, bing bing bing bing bing bing bing, all sorts of things started to fire in my head. I began to think about money, about the movement of money, about how art is really very often connected with dirty money — it always has been — and about luck, and chance, and fate.
On the idea of "priceless" art
The word priceless is only really ever used in connection with two things, with art and with human life. No one ever speaks of a building as being priceless, or a car as being priceless. But human life is priceless, and paintings, they're the most valuable things we have, we lock them up in fortresses. They're under armed guard. And you know, there's a reason for that. When I was in Amsterdam, and was lucky enough to have a tour of the Rijksmuseum after hours, it was very eerie, because at one point the lights blinked out ... and the most extraordinary thing, I was standing in front of the wall of Vermeers, and it was as if they all were lit with a different kind of light from within ... you realized that these paintings were meant to be seen in candlelight, and that they gave off a light of their own. And you realize why these things have no price.