There's this de facto assumption that for something to have value, it has to be economically self-supporting - which imposes a very low ceiling on a culture.

I would kind of, you know, go stand next to some unlucky guy and say eventually, Hi, I'm George. You know, I'm with The New Yorker. I'm a liberal. I'm somewhat left of Gandhi. Do you want to talk? And, you know, they always did.

I think the trick of being a writer is to basically put your cards out there all the time and be willing to be as in the dark about what happens next as your reader would be at that time.

Goodbye. I am leaving because I am bored.

For me, when I'm coming up to a place where I have to make somebody up, it's almost like driving and taking your hands off the wheel.

I came away believing and really deeply troubled by is the extent to which you can have two well-intentioned people talking in a friendly spirit and you get to a point where the two mutual mythologies just don't intersect. So kind of the next piece I'd like to write or think about is how did this left-right divide get so weird and codified.

Toni Morrison seems to have a lot of faith in people - that's what I mean by gentle power.