I do find the values in A Christmas Carol significant. It is important not to be mean and stingy and not to give up love for money.

Fiction is a kind of compassion-generating machine that saves us from sloth. Is life kind or cruel? Yes, Literature answers. Are people good or bad? You bet, says Literature. But unlike other systems of knowing, Literature declines to eradicate one truth in favor of another.

It's so ironic that you often hear these right-wing people talking about the Constitution.

The idea of inclusion has become kind of a stone that we've passed our hand over so many times that it doesn't mean anything.

I still believe that capitalism is too harsh and I believe that, even within that, there is a lot of satisfaction and beauty if you happen to be one of the lucky ones, although that doesn't eradicate the reality of the suffering. It's all true at once, kind of humming and sublime.

That's the only way that I can figure out how to live, is to say, "Well, I don't know what this adds up to, but I can do the best I can."

I'm not sure I would call it agony but there is a kind of cyclic frustration. You get one story right and then here comes another one. When does that end? What I'm trying to do is get it to end right now, by recognizing that that cycle is writing. That is: trying to understand the frustrations and setbacks (and agony) as part of a bigger chess game you are playing with art itself.