It is at the heart of our human enterprise, that is to say, at the heart of society, to allow consensus a power it ought not to have.

The books turn out to be about things afterwards. I don't go into them with concepts, for the most part.

Americans are genuinely and profoundly anti-intellectual. They are especially so in their pleasure-seeking, which is epically banal.

I have a different purpose in writing each novel. Some of them seem more similar than others, but the purposes are always different.

I want to say less, and it's easier to say less.

I believe my friends think I'm funny. All the books are full of humor. Maybe it is a quiet sort of humor that masquerades as not-much-at-all. It is certainly easy to miss.

I don't start with an idea or concept in the sense that I flesh out an idea or concept and set it at the center of something.