If you find yourself as a person in unfamiliar territory, you will grasp on to what is already familiar.

I have been on the margins in terms of having to find a place to live and getting a job, but at some point, and before that point, I always thought no matter where I am, that's the center.

Chicago is not a bad place to live. But the usual story of immigration is the happy fulfillment of human potential in America that is not available anywhere else - it's propaganda, really. It's more complicated than that.

I cannot think of a country in which I would be happy with the government and dominant ideology and available propaganda.

I long for, not a writer's retreat - I can write in any situation - but a reader's retreat.

What I don't like about America is not necessarily an American thing; it's a capitalist thing. This is the Vatican of capitalism.

People will always tell stories. The publishing industry might vanish, but not stories.