There's no bad writing; you did something. I was operating inside language, and I did something. I'm not ashamed of it.

There is a point in fighting. There is a point in struggle. Not wholesale revolution, maybe, that might not be possible, an absolutely just society, but there are plenty of spaces and places where it's worth putting up a fight.

Whatever solidarity I have established with other writers individually, it is usually organized around books. We connected as readers, as it were, not writers.

Rilke said that art can come only out of inner necessity. I write because I must. Or because I cannot not write.

In some way there is no real life. It's always the story of your life that you're living.

Language is so inherent to humanity, so necessary for even basic thinking, that stories and poetry are available to anyone who can process language.

We knew - but didn't want to know - what was going to happen, the sky descending upon our heads like the shadow of a falling piano in a cartoon.