I love Paul Giamatti - God, that man is like a walking Chekhov. His connection to humanity is unbelievable, and those feelings of low self-esteem - the way that all comes together on the screen? Delicious.

You want to read a book? That requires introspection. It requires time away from people and time away from the constant need to communicate and to connect.

Good fiction makes me turn off all the other parts of my brain, so that I become quiet and submissive, entirely at the mercy of the work at hand.

A writer or any suffering artist-to-be is just an instrument too finely set to the human condition [...]

I just want fiction to remain a vital force for entertainment and not just for contemplation. Both things can exist.

If you stop thinking, if you stop wondering, you die.

I don't have many possessions, apart from my books.