You don't have to understand why anything that has happened nor do you even have to understand what it is that has happened. You have only to live with the remains.

When you give up struggle, there's a kind of love.

Yet the fact had no consciousness of itself except through me.

The other book that I worry no one reads anymore is James Joyce's Ulysses. It's not easy, but every page is wonderful and repays the effort. I started reading it in high school, but I wasn't really able to grasp it. Then I read it in college. I once spent six weeks in a graduate seminar reading it. It takes that long. That's the problem. No one reads that way anymore. People may spend a week with a book, but not six.

People have libraries at home, they have bookshelves, they have CDs. And they sort of try, people try to bring great artists into their lives, into their physical houses and sort of live with portions of them. But they're not really deeply engaging with them.

Writing is the most solitary of arts.

A diverse and lively collection, the highest art of the interview.