I don't tend to work directly from life, except in trying to mimic or match the outlines of its insanity. In other words, when I live through something, I just try to say to myself, "OK, remember this - life is really this crazy or scary or beautiful or surprising - so try to 'get at' that in your stories.

What once were two, are one

I think the trick of being a writer is to basically put your cards out there all the time and be willing to be as in the dark about what happens next as your reader would be at that time.

A country doesn't need a businessman to run it: it needs a heartful, worldly, compassionate leader.

The word 'funny' is a bit like the word 'love' - we don't have enough words to describe the many varieties.

Art is not some inessential frippery - it is the nation's means of intelligently regarding itself. To cripple or stigmatize the arts is to doom one's nation to a life of incuriosity, dullness, literalness and the worst kind of rank materialism.

One of the revelations in that book [Lincoln in the Bardo] for me was this idea about citizenship. Even that word - citizenship - for someone my age, it makes me cringe. But, to me, the political space we're in now argues for a reboot of fairly simple ideas and the examination of the way that Americans have not been living into them.