When blame has been assigned, the story is over.

Needing something is not the same thing as being interested in the thing itself.

Say what you want about it, Hell is story-friendly... The mechanisms of hell are nicely attuned to the mechanisms of narrative. Not so the pleasures of Paradise. Paradise is not a story. It's about what happens when the stories are over.

When readers don't like the book, it's usually because they feel that romantic love is pass or somehow needs more irony.

Everybody should customize their names.

What a midwesterner he was, a thoroughly unhip guy with his heart in the usual place, on the sleeve, in plain sight.

Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.