I recognized him then; that is, I finally comprehended what I had known but had never been able to formulate: he had always been complete. He had finished the work of becoming himself, long before any of us could even imagine such a feat was possible.

I'll take any life in which I can make choices and have agency, and America is not a bad place for all that.

I don't believe in inspiration. I write when I can't avoid writing anymore.

There are many things I think about that never get to the point of becoming serious. In other words, I try to talk myself out of writing, sometimes for many years, and when I run out of arguments, I write.

Europe has never been a monolithic space, it contains a lot of people, a lot of languages and infinite supplies of history. I didn't need to do anything to showcase diversity. It is a condition of life and art in Europe, contained in every random sample.

An unjust world represented as harmonious is a political position.

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