When I see a lot of young faces in the audience, it's just sort of sinking in how important that is. Because you're old enough now to identify them very strongly as being young - whereas before, of course they were young, because you were young. Now it's not like that.

Belief is otiose; reality is sufficiently awesome as it stands.

Novelists don't age as quickly as philosophers, who often face professional senility in their late twenties.

One thing you can't help noticing in South America and in Latin culture, generally, is how nice people are. Although when I went back to Spain - my mother lived in Spain and both my brothers lived there - after the Uruguay trip, I thought, "Oh great, Hispanic people." But they weren't nearly as nice as the Uruguayans. They're quite proud and pissed off, the Spaniards.

America has had much more respect for its writers because they had to define what America was. America wasn't sure what it was.

I'm afraid the negative things are always the great subjects. Failure is much more interesting than success.

Style is not neutral; it gives moral directions.