None of us seem to think that we should draw a line under what would be a satisfactory amount of wealth.

The thing about writing in America is that writers in America have an arc. You enter writing as a career, you expect to be successful, and really it's the wrong thing. It's not a profession.

Sometimes when someone says something stupid, my friends and I just read the reviews out loud and collapse with laughter at the stupidity of it all.

What I don't write is as important as what I write.

I've written a book about my mother, and I don't remember anyone going to Antigua or calling up my mother and verifying her life. There is something about this book that drives people mad with the autobiographical question.

when people say you're charming you are in deep trouble.

The slave trade was globalism. Why people insist that globalism, after its hideous history, is a good thing, I do not know.