I hope we're all ready to leave the phenomenal world, and enter into the sublime?

I've written only two novels, but they're both long ones, and they each took a decade to write.

Death is the mother of beauty,” said Henry. “And what is beauty?” “Terror.

In order for a long piece of work to engage a novelist over an extended period of time, it has to deal with questions that you find very important, that you're trying to work out.

A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are.

Anything is grand if it's done on a large enough scale.

If I'm not working, I'm not happy. That's it. That's the prerequisite for me for happiness.