I responded to the gravity of an invisible moon at my core, and I undertook journeys I had not expected to take.

Time is our most precious currency. So it's significant that we are being encouraged, wherever possible, to think of our attention not as expenditure but as consumption. This blurring of labor and entertainment forms the basis, for example, of the financial alchemy that conjures deca-billion-dollar valuations for social-networking companies.

Literature helps us transcend ourselves.

Islam is not a race, yet Islamophobia partakes of racist characteristics.

Yes, Manila had its slums; one saw them on the drive from the airport: vast districts of men in dirty white undershirts lounging idly in front of auto-repair shops - like a poorer version of the 1950s America depicted in such films as Grease.

We need a self because the complexity of the chemical processes that make up our individual humanities exceeds the processing power of our brains.

If it takes you seven years to write each novel, you need a patron. And I would rather have my corporate self as my patron than any arts council or bestower of grants.