Sometimes I see something so moving I know I’m not supposed to linger. See it and leave. If you stay too long, you wear out the wordless shock. Love it and trust it and leave.

I think literature has lost it's power. Great novels continue to be written, but they are no longer changing the world.

America can be saved only by what it's trying to destroy.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

Doesn't seem quite real. It's not meaningful. I can't quite imagine myself being 73. That's the age my father was! [Laughter.] How can I be his age? It's weird.

Perhaps we've invented conspiracies for our own psychic well-being, to heal ourselves.

I didn’t do anything. I don’t have an explanation, I don’t know why I wanted to write. I did some short stories at that time, but very infrequently. I quit my job just to quit. I didn’t quit my job to write fiction. I just didn’t want to work anymore