What's really baffling to me is the way that the technology has risen up to help us become more materialistic.

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 believe that, when [meeting of writer and reader] happens and the reader goes out into the world the next day, there's some alteration that might possibly inflect the person positively.

I don't think much new ever happens. Most of us spend our days the same way people spent their days in the year 1000: walking around smiling, trying to earn enough to eat, while neurotically doing these little self-proofs in our head about how much better we are than these other slobs, while simultaneously, in another part of our brain, secretly feeling woefully inadequate to these smarter, more beautiful people.

The other thing that's useful for me is this notion of the absolute versus the relative:if we walk out and it's a beautiful morning, it's only a beautiful morning because we don't have a broken leg or hemorrhoids or something.

Even when the faith goes away, there's that space where you crave something bigger than yourself. For me, that's kind of where art came in, after that.

Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible.