When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it'll be a great place.

I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again.

Nothing has a more sinister effect on art than the artist's desire to prove that he's good. The terrible temptation of idealism! You must achieve mastery over your idealism, over your virtue as well as over your vice, aesthetic mastery over everything that drives you to write in the first place - your outrage, your politics, your grief, your love!

Nothing bad can happen to a writer. Everything is material.

Eventually the writing takes time. What I want to do is get the story down and I want to know what happens as I write my way into the knowledge of the story.

I'm an Obama supporter. And if you're an Obama supporter that means you had a hard time during the Bush years.

There are no uncontaminated angels