The way I understood purgatory - and maybe you've got a different version - but in Chicago in the '70s, the idea was it was like detention. You had screwed up and you go over there in purgatory and you sit there until the end of days and then we'll decide. You'd made your mistake, and you were in prison, and it's not terrible and it's not great, and you feel a little crappy because you were not in the presence of God.

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 remember reading The Bluest Eye when I was a young parent, and something opened in me. That's the highest aspiration.

I still believe that capitalism is too harsh and I believe that, even within that, there is a lot of satisfaction and beauty if you happen to be one of the lucky ones, although that doesn't eradicate the reality of the suffering. It's all true at once, kind of humming and sublime.

I don't really do much social media. I just don't like it that much. I've trained myself to write very slowly for a lot of money so it really galls me to write quickly for free.

As a fiction writer, one of things you learn is God lives in specificity. You know, human kindness is increased as we pursue specificity.

The word 'funny' is a bit like the word 'love' - we don't have enough words to describe the many varieties.