My view is that our minds are incredibly powerful animals that are, during life, kept somewhat in check by the load of our bodies. Once that load is gone (or so some ancient texts teach us) the mind is like a horse off the tether. So the habits we get into here might have something to do with what happens to us afterwards. An exciting but harrowing idea, given the everyday state of my mind. But also hopeful, since that's something a person can work with.

Writing and reading and speaking with specificity and skill has never seen more important to me than it does at this moment. It's what's between us and chaos.

The idea is that what an artist lives through should broaden his notion of what it is possible for a human being to live through, and that new understanding should then get into and expand the work.

If you're going to make an emotional connection with somebody, whether it's in the story or in the world, there's a certain amount of self-acceptance that is required.

An artist's job is to be interested in things as they are.

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

Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we're someone else, disrupting the delusion that we're permanent and at the center of the universe. Suddenly (we're saved!) other people are real again, and we're fond of them.