There was a point when I was 15 or 16 that I realized that my father wanted me to be a loner. I decided, 'It's okay to be an introvert, but I don't want to be a loner. I want a few other people in my life.

Reading and writing are in themselves subversive acts.

Writing was a spiritual exercise for my father, the only thing he really believed in.

Well, I thought, last night I paid my dues. I faced death. Now I can stay.

My only hope was to be polite.

None of us are entirely well, and none of us are irrecoverably sick.

What occurs to people when they read Kurt [Vonnegut] is that things are much more up for grabs than they thought they were. The world is a slightly different place just because they read a damn book. Imagine that.