A novel is a performance you have to plan.

I just started going to shows. I don't know how submerged I am: I feel guilty that I don't get out more, but I really like being inside the house.

Our [former] governor [Pat McCrory] was supposed to be a moderate, but he found himself beholden to people who have much more draconian ideas. I think he assumed this stuff flew under the radar.

There is something fierce and starved about first ideas.

The South actually has a very strong tradition of activism. The civil rights movement came from down here! It was black activists demanding that their voices be heard. People say these are red states. No they're not!

You can get into anything if you are determined. I always thought that with music, too.

I wrote short stories when I was a teenager, but they weren't any good and I kinda knew it.