My habit would have been to veer towards the dark - to prove I was something; edgy, or maybe to prove that I was cognisant of the dark side. Now, with age and confidence, I can say, yeah, that's true, but I am cognisant of the fact that people can do things well. And can be more loving than you expect.

The demographics are changing - and so what? Citizenship is a question of certain agreed-upon values and that is that. Do we believe that? I think at heart we do.

One of the ideas that runs through this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] is this Buddhist notion that the mind is incredibly powerful; not the brain but the mind.

I've also found that trying to be active with social media changes my moment-to-moment perceptions. Instead of feeling, "What's the deepest version of what's happening here?" I start to feel, "How can I use [or "claim"] this?".

The idea is that what an artist lives through should broaden his notion of what it is possible for a human being to live through, and that new understanding should then get into and expand the work.

That's what a story must feel like to me. It's not, "I want to write about a gravedigger." But you're walking along and - boop! shovel. "Ok, what does one do with a shovel? Digs a hole. Why? I don't know yet. Dig the hole! Oh, look a body."

I feel that there is nothing that can happen to a person that is banal. Everything that happens to us is interesting.