I think the mission for the writer is to tell stories in a compelling way about the stuff that cannot be talked about, that cannot be gotten at with shallow media.

The world was ending then, it's ending still, and I'm happy to belong to it again.

Deploring other people--their lack of perfection--had always been our sport.

It's not surprising to see in my own work, looking back, and in the work of some of my peers, an attention to family. It's nice to write a book that does tend toward significance and meaning, and where else are you sure of finding it?

Good novels are produced by people who voluntarily isolate themselves and go deep, and report from the depths on what they find.

He had a happy canine way of seeking approval without seeming insecure.

I can't stomach any kind of notion that serious fiction is good for us, because I don't believe that everything that's wrong with the world has a cure.