I still believe that capitalism is too harsh and I believe that, even within that, there is a lot of satisfaction and beauty if you happen to be one of the lucky ones, although that doesn't eradicate the reality of the suffering. It's all true at once, kind of humming and sublime.

At times, they're so Right and I'm so Left, we agree.

Chekhov - shall I be blunt? - is the greatest short story writer who ever lived.

In the absolute sense - kind of from the God's-eye view - God might feel like, "I made this thing that has all of that in it, all the horror and all the beauty."

I think when you get to export your creative impulse into something, it kind of lessens that busy energy that can be so confrontational and pissy.

An artist's job is to be interested in things as they are.

It would be so weird if we knew just as much as we needed to know to answer all the questions of the universe. Wouldn't that be freaky? Whereas the probability is high that there is a vast reality that we have no way to perceive, that's actually bearing down on us now and influencing everything.