My mother was an economics professor. I'm proficient in math, and statistics, game theory, symbolic logic and all of that.

I think that if you don't like something and it's not easy, you shouldn't be doing it.

Most famous artists are created by their work and the idea of them as a character, and if they're smart and ambitious, they reinforce that character because they want to win. They want their views to prevail.

The idea of political content is irrelevant. Content is irrelevant. I always tell my students, "Never forget you're writing words! You know, word one, word two, word three, word four. The words have to be organized. Nothing else does."

Art has political consequences, which is to say, it reorganizes society and creates constituencies of people around it.

When you really respect somebody who does something different from you, your respect is for the quality of the job.

I hate all that woozy political and psychotherapeutic crap applied to books and art.