I understand what something short should be like. I understand beauty in that form. If I start extending, somehow I kind of lose my bearings.

The story sometimes writes you into a corner.

I think something that I can't name about our media has made us move away from that kind of specificity and that kind of curiosity.

My view is that our minds are incredibly powerful animals that are, during life, kept somewhat in check by the load of our bodies. Once that load is gone (or so some ancient texts teach us) the mind is like a horse off the tether. So the habits we get into here might have something to do with what happens to us afterwards. An exciting but harrowing idea, given the everyday state of my mind. But also hopeful, since that's something a person can work with.

I guess: People who are comfortable enough with reality to allow other sorts of realities and other mindsets to just be, and then to regard these with real interest and joy [and the joy appears in the prose quality itself].

I don't know how you feel, but I feel like writing, clarity of thought, and truth have been validated because we see what happens when we get lax in those areas. I'm excited by the idea that writers like us can actually reach out and try to understand and prod and agitate the people who are in support of Trump because we have the tools to do it. We're language people and we're idea people.

[Lincoln in the Bardo] is not a long book. And that meant I could obsess over it and live in it both backwards and forwards and hyper-control everything.