Even if something within me is ugly, writing is a pretty good place to play with that thing and to begin to really see it.

I was, not an altar boy, but a reader of the Epistle, and I walked in on a nun and a priest furiously French kissing when I was in seventh grade. I walked in, saw it, and went, "No way," backed out, composed myself, and went back in, and it was still going on. And the experience of seeing that was actually very deep.

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

I have a lot of theories about the beneficial effects of fiction, but I'm always trying to get away from them a little bit.

I would say one thing writing this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] did for me was underscore the fact that this issue [all men are created equal] has never been properly addressed and it hasn't gone away.

If you really think back to the great writers, there's a lot of happiness in Tolstoy; there's a lot of love, there's childbirth, and there's dances. And likewise in Shakespeare and even Cervantes, there's a lot of celebrations of the positive manifestations of life. Technically, I found it harder to do, so that's kind of a good late-life challenge - without getting sentimental or chirpy.

Success is like a mountain in front of you that keeps growing. If you're not careful, it will take up your whole life.