The real past can traumatize us, but so can the real future.

We can't write a serious novel in the 21st century without acknowledging the inescapable self-awareness we're stuck with. The idea we're surrounded by falsehoods and lies. It's hard for the thinking person to believe in narratives. And yet we want some place to invest our belief.

Paranoia can be a sign of a sanity in some circumstances, in some places and times.

We're getting used to reality and fantasy passing into each other. Much of the border between them has been erased.

The idea that language can be recombined to create new forms, new things, is of course very old in poetry.

It's fiction's job to express how it feels to be living now, and it's a complex feeling, full of contradiction. To me it often feels like a brutal trivialization of reality.

I'm not even sure if empathy is an act, it could be a disposition.