One of the things that novels have tended not to concentrate on over the centuries is the fact that people read books.

To the resentment that hides inside love, to the loneliness that hides among companions.

I work on a laptop specifically so I can work in cafes and pretend I'm part of the human world.

I've never related to the work geek at all-it sounds much more horrible than nerd. Like a freak biting a chicken's head off in a sideshow.

I don't want to indulge myself in the luxury of writing beautiful paragraphs just for the sake of making beautiful writing. That doesn't interest me. I want everything to be essential.

what exactly is postmodernism, except modernism without the anxiety?

The arts and a belief in the values of the civil rights movement, in the overwhelming virtue of diversity, these were our religion. My parents worshipped those ideals.