Art is inherently subversive. It’s destabilizing. It undermines what you already know and what you already think. It is the opposite of propaganda.

It's broadening. You meet people in your family you'd never happen to run into otherwise.

I always thought of writing as holy. I still do. It’s not something to be approached casually.

The task is not primarily to have a story, but to penetrate the story, to discard the elements of it that are merely shell, or husk, that give apparent form to the story, but actually obscure the essence. In other words, the problem is to transcend the givens of a narrative.

Nothing is more fortifying than learning that you have a real reader, a reader who truly responds both accurately and actively. It gives you courage, and you feel, I can crawl out on the branch a little further. It’s going to hold.

I'm a person with virtually no feelings.

Everything makes me angry, unless it makes me sad.