I have nothing. My model is I have nothing figured out, and I'm starting with some little nugget and hoping that it will talk back to me enough to let it grow.

I think we need leadership that can gently and with affection remind us of what we Americans mostly agree upon: civility, kindness, tolerance, humour, et cetera. The current Trump administration seems to thrive on trying to enforce a very odd, fearful agenda, that it tries to disguise in a false garment of fondness for the working-class - despite the fact that its policies seem designed to continue the decades-long habit of marginalizing that group.

The millions or billions of micro decisions that you're going to make, that's what will determine who you are as a writer, not you deciding in advance.

When something really bad is going on in a culture, the average guy doesn't see it. He can't. He's average and is surrounded by and immersed in the cant and discourse of the status quo.

If you haven't read you don't have the voice. The lack of voice eliminates experience.

Stories, as much as we like to talk about them, retrospectively, as emanations of theme or worldview or intention, occur primarily as technical objects when they're being written. Or at least they do for me. They're the result of thousands of decisions made at speed during revision.

My understanding of kindness is that we are hoping to be truly beneficial in every situation, and that this desire means a whole suite of things: being nicer, sure, but also being more aware, more present, more articulate, more fearless, less habituated, etc., etc. And sometimes even being firm, or having an edge, or even being angry.