I know that what's happened in the election has changed American reality, and I understand that I have to change with it. I have to rethink how I live my life. I'm not a political essayist; I don't see that I would have any value cranking out articles for newspapers or magazines, because lots of people are doing that already.
Paul AusterArt is not politics. The glory of the novel is that in its essence, it is a democratic form, because it treats individuals as worthy of scrutiny. That alone is a kind of political act. A good novel about a tea party of rich women can be just as galvanizing and important to the soul as War and Peace, so I think it's not really the job of artists to do anything. They can have their opinions as private citizens, but they must continue making their art.
Paul AusterIn the good mystery there is nothing wasted, no sentence, no word that is not significant.
Paul AusterChance is an element of life. What I try to do is study what I call the mechanics of reality as carefully as I can.
Paul AusterThere's a difference between doing memoir and writing a novel. If I had put the story of the boy killing my dog - and that was Eric also, what a little monster he was! - in a novel, even if I took it directly from life, it would be fiction.
Paul Auster