I think kindness is a sort of gateway virtue - having that simple aspiration can get you into deep water very quickly - in a good way.

I think it's basically the same game, although with a public figure like [Donald] Trump I think you are bound to consider the public persona rather than the private one. At least that was the case with that piece of writing.

It was that impossible thing: happiness that does not wilt to reveal the thin shoots of some new desire rising from within it.

Now I began to understand art as a kind of black box the reader enters. He enters in one state of mind and exits in another. The writer gets no points just because what's inside the box bears some linear resemblance to "real life" -- he can put whatever he wants in there. What's important is that something undeniable and nontrivial happens to the reader between entry and exit.

The switch that I'd like to throw on is the one that says, "Look, you're a human being whose mind is every bit as active as anybody else's. Your experiences are just as real." For that matter, even if they're even if they're crazy, they're valid. They occurred in this world so they're valid topics for literature.

As one gets older, this question of death, becomes more vexing and urgent.

I used to joke about this but I've recently realized that I really believe it: I spent many years training myself to write very slowly for pretty good money. So the idea of writing really quickly for free offends me.