In my mind what novels do best is that they immerse us deeply into our character's world - they truly transport us deep into these spaces - but the same way you know a Hollywood movie won't end after thirty minutes, you carry in yourself the implicit contract that the novel won't throw you out of itself 'til the very end. That bulk of pages is a form of consolation, of security.

She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you'll know loss the rest of your life.

For me, the battle isn't Hillary [Clinton] vs. [Bernie] Sanders. And I understand that for some people that's the battle. But for me, more than anything, it's stopping a Republican president.

It's exactly at these moments, when all hope has vanished, that prayer has dominion.

There's little question that short stories, like poetry, don't get the respect they deserve in the culture - but what can you do? Like Canute, one cannot fight the sea, you have to go with your love, and hope one day, things change.

As artists we are here to make you uncomfortable with the complexity of your reality.

Poor Oscar. Without even realizing it he'd fallen into one of those Let's Be Friends Vortexes, the bane of nerdboys everywhere. These relationships were love's version of a stay in the stocks, in you go, plenty of misery guaranteed and what you got out of it besides bitterness and heartbreak nobody knows. Perhaps some knowledge of self and women.