To refrain from storytelling is perhaps one of the highest forms of respect we can pay. Those people, with no stories to circle them, can die without being misunderstood.

The common, the quotidian, is so much more unyielding to me, really stubborn and hard to work with, and I like this because it makes me think and it makes me worry. I can't just plunge my hand into the meat of it. I need new approaches.

Family seems so rich and complicated to me. There's meant to be this unfailing biological loyalty and yet at the same time it's this theatre for various kinds of cruelty. I know it doesn't always work out that way, but the worst possible behaviour is sort of allowed for. It looks to me like an endlessly rich container for really terrible drama, but also pretty grand love. It accommodates such a variety of feeling in such a natural way, and it feels so relatable, and yet it's such a funny construct, socially, the family.

I work a lot in the summers. My family goes to Maine, where we have a little house. My wife's a writer, too, and we can write for six hours a day and then play with the kids.

My first book, 'The Age of Wire and String,' came out in 1995, and it was hardly reviewed at all.

In certain strains of Judaism, there's a profound passion for the ineffable. Contemplation of God is meant to be forever elusive, because, you know, our tiny minds can't possibly comprehend Him. If we find ourselves comprehending Him, then we can be sure we're off track.

Spelling is a way to make words safe, at least for now, until another technology appears to soften attacks launched from the mouth.