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

Popular success is a wonderful gift if it happens, but like money, it's not the motivation. The effort to create a work of art that is true and potentially lasting, that is the very best work of art you can create at that point in your life - a book that may only reach or move a few people but will seem to people somehow transformative. That's the ideal; that's always the motivation.

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.

An abiding preoccupation for me is how much of our lives are invisible and unknown by other people like the Chekhov story The Lady With the Little Dog.

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

I've always felt that if a project seems easy, or even attainable, why pursue it? I'll always find the hardest path.

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