Sometimes it seems to me that the celebration of a person is really just a prelude to ridicule.

There's a kind of perverseness or betrayal in that idea that art is somehow superior to life. Or that it's more important to write well than it is to take out the garbage.

We go to literature because it shows us some set of humane values. It is showing us how to live.

Even though I think writers can sometimes thrive from being misread. It can give them something to push off of.

I've always found too that somewhere in whatever you've just written lies the seed of what you're going to write next.

Sacrificing one's life on the altar of literature is in some ways like sacrificing a goat to some malicious spirit. It's not always a humane or necessary decision.

I'm going to write what I feel like writing, which is a great place to be. But it can be hard to get there. It's so easy to get stricken with one kind of self-consciousness or another.