Paul Ryan's just a really, deeply evil little creature. But he's not little; he's actually quite tall, I'm sorry to see. I'm always sorry when really bad guys are tall.

I know you can dream your way through an otherwise fine life, and never wake up, which is what I almost did.

You can't write ... on the strength of influence. You can only write a good story or a good novel by yourself.

The pace of life feels morally dangerous to me.

What was our life like? I almost don't remember now. Though I remember it, the space of time it occupied. And I remember it fondly.

Being a slow reader would normally be a deficiency; I found a way to make it an asset. I began to sound words and see all those qualities - in a way it made words more precious to me. Since so much of what happens in the world between human beings has to do with the inconsideration of language, with the imprecision of language, with language leaving our mouths unmediated, one thing which was sensuous and visceral led to, in the use of language, a moral gesture. It was about trying to use language to both exemplify and articulate what good is.

In order to write novels for a living - it's not pathological, but I do think and worry and brood and fidget about stuff that I'm working on.