I think it is time for a new pride in the intellectual life, and a new impatience with people who take pride in ignorance, or somehow use "elite" to mean "person who has taken the time to know" and then are eager to dismiss, say, striving, or the notion that improving one's self out of difficult conditions is a noble thing.

When I think about what fiction does morally, I'm happier thinking of a person full of multiplicities - sort of fragmented.

She said America was a spoiled child ignorant of grief.

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 try to keep my artistic opinions not so much "to myself" but "on myself."

The best thing we can bring to any fight is a calm and compassionate mind.

When I'm explaining something to you, if I'm being long-winded, and twisty in a non-productive way, I could make you feel vaguely insulted. And you'd have a right to be.