Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from on generation to the next. Books save lives.

I really trust audiences as having excellent taste, for the most part.

Don't be afraid of anyone. Imagine your life if you're not afraid of anyone.

You can do great things with low-tech stuff.

. . . I wrote a letter to Thomas Pynchon asking, Can I have your permission to try to make an [adaptation] of your book? And I had no idea that he would answer me, because he's pretty elusive. But he did send a letter back that said, Yes, you can do that - as long as the only instrument in the opera is a banjo. I thought, That's an interesting way of saying No.

I genuinely have never been in an audience where most people want that person to fail. I've never been in an audience like that, and I've never seen it as a performer. Only in my dreams, in which case they are always throwing tomatoes and going, "This is the most boring thing I've ever seen."

Art can be engaged in the world without being specifically politically engaged.