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.

If you're going to make an emotional connection with somebody, whether it's in the story or in the world, there's a certain amount of self-acceptance that is required.

I think the path for a young writer might be one that says, "I have to accept myself, this is what I am. I can't eradicate my defects. I can work on them."

In art, and maybe just in general, the idea is to be able to be really comfortable with contradictory ideas. In other words, wisdom might be, seem to be, two contradictory ideas both expressed at their highest level and just let to sit in the same cage sort of, vibrating. So, I think as a writer, I'm really never sure of what I really believe.

I'm not thinking in any big thematic or conceptual terms - especially in this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] when I was trying to make the voices more active, more energetic.

In my work, and in my psyche, there's some very sentimental, traditional, conventional side that's always in argument with a more radical, sarcastic side. Some of my stories are really sentimental, but they're layered over with weird, satirical stuff.

America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please, not just one droning glamourous reasonable voice.