Religion has been an important part of my understanding, my inquiry into what it means to be human.

I don't feel that as an artist my job is to offer PR propaganda, whether for the good or for the bad.

I think that literary forms are losing their capacity to connect people to issues, to the experiences that feel most meaningful to them.

The secret of a happy life is respect. Respect for yourself and respect for others.

I don't want to test that simple sense of being human. I don't want to transform it.

I feel like that religions generally ask the biggest questions. They may not always have the best answers, but they're the zone of human activity that regularly asks the biggest questions.

I think of myself as a narrative artist. I don't think of myself as a novelist or screenwriter or playwright. All of those modalities of processing and experiencing narrative are obviously very different, and I'm not sure that I prefer any one to the other. I think the novel gives you the opportunity to have a kind of interiority that you can't have in the theater, which is pure exteriority.