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.

Every writer has to find the thing to keep her eye on about which she has strong opinions. That's of course deeply personal, but the nice thing is that it has to do with joy rather than fear. It has to do with you. If you're funny, your method will be to try to be funnier. Which again is empowering I think.

I feel that there is nothing that can happen to a person that is banal. Everything that happens to us is interesting.

I don't really write beautifully naturally, unlike some people.

I'm always aware of writing around things I can't do, and I've come to think that that's actually what 'style' is - an avoidance of your deficiencies.

I don't know how you feel, but I feel like writing, clarity of thought, and truth have been validated because we see what happens when we get lax in those areas. I'm excited by the idea that writers like us can actually reach out and try to understand and prod and agitate the people who are in support of Trump because we have the tools to do it. We're language people and we're idea people.

As for "toothy kindness" - I think all traditions are full of this sort of tough kindness. If someone is on a wrong or dull path, and someone else startles them into awareness of that, then that's a blessing. And the method by which the startle is obtained might be anger, or satire, or an intentionally applied indifference. But that is, of course, a fine line.