To my mind, Guernica is the most important online intellectual and literary journal in America today.

The more accurately one can illuminate a particular human experience, the better the work of art.

When you are the woman upstairs, nobody thinks of you first. Nobody calls you before anyone else, or sends you the first postcard. Once your mother dies, nobody loves you “best of all.” It's a small thing, you might think, and maybe it depends on your temperament, maybe for some people it's a small thing, but for me [...]

I think that one of the great things about spending - as in my case - twenty-something years with somebody is that at some point you do love the actual person. They're there little by little, the outline is really pretty clear.

That's so her. You know, torn between Big Ideas and a party. She's always been that way.

Maybe that, really, is as good a definition as any of an artist in the world: a ruthless person.

I always say to my students, if you can do anything other than writing and be happy, then you should.