[On political correctness:] Any intended message mattered less than the received message, and every received message could be interpreted in whatever way the receiver wanted.

I am interested in the possibility that we are going to be wrong in the same way that history has indicated that mankind always is. It seems as though the history of ideas is the history of being wrong. And to me, that is a kind of continuum. It's a continual path that shows we don't always know something, but we're always shifting to a path that makes us feel more comfortable in the moment, even if that shift is wrong, and a new shift is destined to happen again.

I almost never get lonely. I love being alone. I'm glad I'm married, and I love my wife. But there's never been a situation in my life where my unhappiness was based on loneliness.

Texting has become my favorite way to communicate. I feel like many of my relationships are based in this, because in a sense it feels the closest to actual conversation that isn't the phone.

It's possible this whole "Why do Latinos love Morrisey?" question will haunt us forever. Fortunately, Canadian academics are on the case.

The problem a lot of writers have is that they really, really enjoy people saying, "You're brilliant." They let their self-perception be dictated by reader response. But if you're going to let other people make you feel good, you're going to end up feeling bad when they say the opposite. You've got to be a cultural stoic. Then you won't be devastated by people who respond negatively. Of course, the downside is that it sort of stops you from being able to enjoy people liking your work.

Necessity used to be the mother of invention, but then we ran out of things that were necessary. The postmodern mother of invention is desire; we don’t really “need” anything new, so we only create what we want.