But we're lost in a world of appearances now.

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

If I had to summarize, most broadly, my concerns as a writer, I'd say the question 'How then must we live?' is at the heart of it, for me.

Does Being Happy simply Create More Time, in the way that Being Sad, as we all know, slows time and thickens it, like cornstarch in a sauce?).

I've discovered over the years that the simplest explanation is almost always the right one; and that hunger of one kind or another - desire, by another name - is the source of almost every sorrow.

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

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