All along, my mantra was: Don't write unless it contributes to the emotion, and do anything you do in service of the emotion only.

I think it is time for a new pride in the intellectual life, and a new impatience with people who take pride in ignorance, or somehow use "elite" to mean "person who has taken the time to know" and then are eager to dismiss, say, striving, or the notion that improving one's self out of difficult conditions is a noble thing.

I've had that my whole career. People were always hedging around the question of: Why are you so dark? What happened to you?

In fiction, conceptualizing, I've found, produces dull and over-controlled text.

While I'm doing [writing], I don't feel it.I don't think that's a failing. I think it's just a feature. Like, a feature of oneself.

I watched a documentary about the immigrant crisis around the world. And it does make me blush at all the times I've stood up on the stage and given your speech about the healing power of fiction.

Success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it... Err in the direction of kindness.