It was all those biographies in me yelling, 'We want out. We want to tell you what we've done to you.'

I work with language. I love the flowers of afterthought.

A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading.

Charity you can give even when you haven't got.

Nationality isn't soul.

Prufrock had measured out his life with measuring spoons; Dubin, in books resurrecting the lives of others.

What suffering has taught me is the uselessness of suffering.