I’ll wait for you. Come back. The words were not meaningless, but they didn’t touch him now. It was clear enough - one person waiting for another was like an arithmetical sum, and just as empty of emotion. Waiting. Simply one person doing nothing, over time, while another approached. Waiting was a heavy word.

I couldn't think about novels at all. It seemed the only writing that was appropriate to that horrendous event was journalism, reportage. And, in fact, I think the profession rose quite honorably to the task. Novelists require a slower turnover, I mean, in time.

Screenwriting is an opportunity to fly first class, be treated like a celebrity, sit around the pool and be betrayed.

There are ways in which art can have a longer reach than politics.

Writing a novel resembles a journey with only the sketchiest of maps.

Writers are said to have superstitions and little rituals. Readers have them too.

For the professors in the academy, for the humanities generally, misery is more amenable to analysis: happiness is a harder nut to crack.