We do not read to pass the time, but to inhabit time.

I've been asked which of the other arts novel-writing is most like, and I have come to believe it is acting. Of course, in terms of pattern it can be like music, in terms of structure it can be like painting, but the job to me is most like acting.

We do not read to pass the time, but to inhabit time.

Writing a novel is an act of self-annihilation as much as self-discovery. You can kill whole appetites and flood whole depths while plumbing them, but if you are serious about it you also get to put something into the world that wasn't quite there before.

It's not a crime not to know yourself. It's not a crime to send life away. It's just a shame.

Art you can flush down the loo means nothing to me, even were the loo to be selected by Marcel Duchamp

As a writer I care about America, and care about its carelessness.