I do believe - and I know I shouldn't - that art transcends money and success and any of that. You can still do it if you're not clinging to the notion of nobility.

What you demand from storytelling is a moral - even political - import. I tend to shun that didactic aspect.

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

Literature is always something - it is either story or poetry, ideally both. That is, you always know what it is and even if the interpretation is not available, the experience of language is.

Politics imagined as direct agency, whether by voting or by participating in politics, you can think you're not political because you don't do anything between elections.

If you can't go home, there is nowhere to go, and nowhere is the biggest place in the world-indeed, nowhere is the world.

Memoir implies the need to reveal something about yourself - to recount your life for educational purposes.