You might 'write from the heart,' but you'd better polish with your brain.

Victorian literature was my subject at Harvard.

All fiction is about people, unless it's about rabbits pretending to be people. It's all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that's what we call 'the plot'.

Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges - on gifts, trades, loans - and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back.

All observations of life are harsh, because life is. I lament that fact, but I cannot change it.

After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? Because it is.

The scroll is coming back (Twitter is a scroll.)