I'm a control freak. I'm defensive. And I'm an egomaniac. That's true about me.

In my case, when I am trying to be "kind" I often default in a sort of toothless loving-all stance that is, actually, not kind, because it is not truthful.

Realism is to fiction what gravity is to walking: a confinement that allows dancing under the right circumstances.

While writing this book [Lincoln in the Bardo], [idea of inclusion] occurred to me, you either believe in the Constitution or you don't. If you do, it's intense in what it wants of us.

It's funny with fiction - once you cut something, it hasn't happened anymore.

So I may not have had a gothic childhood, but childhood makes its own gothicity.

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.