The millions or billions of micro decisions that you're going to make, that's what will determine who you are as a writer, not you deciding in advance.

Err in the direction of kindness.

Social media sometimes feels like a vehicle for one-dimensional sniping, more than true criticism.

We have to move toward specificity, intelligence, facts, proof, and mutual affection. What I think people have to do now is be very, very assertive about the utter essentiality of intellectual undertakings.

We're in the transition between birth and death. But the one that people often know about is the transition between the moment of death and whatever comes next, so reincarnation or heaven or hell.

My idea about collections is that you write as hard as you can for some period and what you're really doing during that time is hyper-focusing on the individual pieces - trying to make each one sit up and really do some surprising work.

What evil does first in the world, maybe, is distract us from our pursuit of goodness.