Love commingled with hate is more powerful than love. Or hate.

The greatest works of literature seem to embody both "art" and "morality".

Don't try to anticipate an ideal reader - or any reader. He/she might exist - but is reading someone else.

I think it's very important for writers and artists generally to be witnesses to the world, and to be transparent. To let other people speak... to travel... to experience the world. And memorialize it.

I believe that art is the highest expression of the human spirit. I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participate in something mysterious and communal called 'culture' - and that this yearning is as strong in our species as the yearning to reproduce the species.

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

I see the world in ways that might be considered somewhat harsh and Darwinistic. At the same time mediated, as in Darwin, by a real idealism and an excitement about the possibilities of the intellect and imagination to deal with this somewhat brutal world.