A novel is a relationship, you know? When you read a book, the writer has done half the work, and you're doing half the work. You're providing the imagination, the words are turning into pictures in your mind, there's an active relationship that's going on.

There's this overly friendly sense of community built up by very isolated people, and there's this Lutheran humbleness that keeps people from talking about their own feelings and asking about yours. What does that do in this modern age where everyone takes pictures of their food, and they share every thought they've ever had in real time?

Some roads you shouldn't go down. Because maps used to say there were dragons here. Now they don't. But that don't mean the dragons aren't there.

There's only one note you ever get in broadcast and that's clarity.

In a book you can really talk about ideas and themes and characters in a deeper way than you can even on the screen.

My feeling has always been if you entertain people, they give you permission to do more on a thematic or character level.

A two-hour movie tends to be a plot-delivery device; you tend to have to introduce all the characters, say what the goal is, and then get there with a setback, but that's not really how life is or what a story necessarily wants to be.