I've had the thought that a person's 'artistic vision' is really just the cumulative combination of whatever particular stances he has sincerely occupied during his creative life - even if some of those might appear contradictory.

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.

I love the feeling of being on the hunt - the feeling that the story is refusing to be solved in some lesser way and is insisting that you see it on its highest terms.

Your first responsibility is to yourself and to your own goodness of heart.

Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.

Twitter is a deliberate abstention. Somehow I hate the idea of there always being, in the back of my mind, this little voice saying: 'Oh, I should tweet about this.'

It really was something, to see Ram Bahadur Bomjon, apparently living without food or water. Before I went on that trip I'd asked advice on it from a very wise person who I love and revere - basically trying to see if I was somehow disrespecting Buddhism by trying to write about it, and also looking for some grounding on what stance to take ... and my friend said, "Well, why don't you just go and see?" And I hear that in my head all the time now: "Why don't you go and see?"