As the writer of this book [Lincoln in the Bardo], what I loved was the feeling of having so many surprises come at the end that I hadn't really planned or planted.

I always cheerfully say, "Well, you know, the species is adapting, and whatever it needs to do, it'll do," but I do think it's maybe a little bit alarming. Everybody knows that one thing we really have to do is to be more wherever we are, more present, that's just kind of a commonplace. And the whole mobile phone thing is completely 100% the opposite - to never be where you are because you can always be somewhere else; and yet it's so fun and addictive.

I love the idea that more people would read short fiction. I think it's such a humanizing form. It softens the boundaries between people.

I'm a liberal and I'm left of Gandhi and I don't like Trump.

I've found that my first drafts are not so special. But the more I work on them, the better they get. They are more unique and defensible.

She said America was a spoiled child ignorant of grief.

Kindness, it turns out, is hard - it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include . . . well, EVERYTHING.