I think it is our job, as writers, to be epic. Epic and tiny at the same time. If you're going to be a fiction writer, why not take on something that means something. In doing this, you must understand that within that epic structure it is the tiny story that is possibly more important.

I want the younger writer to know that she or he is meaningful, that what they have to say is powerful in this world. But they can't come indoors, they can't close the curtains, they can't, like, lock themselves away from the world and say nothing.

Give life long enough and it will solve all your problems, including the one of being alive.

We shape ourselves by our imaginative reach.

There's a part of me that thinks perhaps we go on existing in a place even after we've left it.

...and it strikes her, as she walks, that borders, like hatred, are exaggerated precisely because otherwise they would cease to exist altogether.

He might have been naive, but he didn't care; he said he's rather die with his heart on his sleeve than end up another cynic.