The joke is the purest, most essential form of storytelling. Every word has to count.

There are two kinds of typical days. There's the typical day when I'm writing a novel, and there's the typical day when I'm not.

The kind of fiction I'm trying to write is about telling the truth.

In the old physics, three times two equals six and two times three equals 6 are reversible propositions. Not in quantum physics. Three times two and two times three are two different matters, distinct and separate propositions.

Every generation always thinks it was better before, and I think people have been saying this for probably thousands of years.

I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table.

In the end, the art of hunger can be described as an existential art. It is a way of looking death in the face, and by death I mean death as we live it today: without God, without hope of salvation. Death as the abrupt and absurd end of life