[Lincoln in the Bardo] is not a long book. And that meant I could obsess over it and live in it both backwards and forwards and hyper-control everything.

Fiction is open to whoever comes in the door, as long as you come in energetically.

I think this is the other big issue that is not going away: Do we really believe that bit in the Constitution or not? I think we do.

That's one of the reasons I take a lot of consolation in fiction. You have years to work on it. I think that allows you to reach for the best part of your reader instead of a lot of the internet stuff, in which you're kind of reaching for the worst or the most shallow part of your reader.

The Bush administration is a paragon of wisdom.

Err in the direction of kindness.

The contours of the coming disaster expanded to include the deaths of all present.