I think even like Saddam Hussein or Hitler would wake up and say, "I think it's going to be a good day. I'm gonna do some really important work." And given their definition of good, they went out and did horrible things.

The universal human laws - need, love for the beloved, fear, hunger, periodic exaltation, the kindness that rises up naturally in the absence of hunger/fear/pain - are constant, predictable, reliable, universal, and are merely ornamented with the details of local culture.

I remember reading The Bluest Eye when I was a young parent, and something opened in me. That's the highest aspiration.

I try to keep my artistic opinions not so much "to myself" but "on myself."

I think that fiction has a part to play in urging us, as a species, toward compassion.

I think when you get to export your creative impulse into something, it kind of lessens that busy energy that can be so confrontational and pissy.

As a writer I'm essentially just trying to impersonate a first-time reader, who picks up the story and has to decide, at every point, whether to keep going.