The most hopeful thing in the stories, I hope, is wit. I make it up. If I make up a world in which we're ruled by big talking turds, it doesn't mean that we are. So you shouldn't feel depressed.

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

Of course there's objective truth, but when we're looking at people's accounts of it, it seems the real truth lies in the accretion of all these different versions.

I think if someone could demonstrate to me that fiction did no good, I would still do it, because I think it does good for me.

When I think about what fiction does morally, I'm happier thinking of a person full of multiplicities - sort of fragmented.

It's a big world, and I really like it.

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.