This idea that a book can either be about character and feeling, or about politics and idea, is just a false binary. Ideas are an expression of the feelings and the intense emotions we hold about the world.

Evil is the refusal to see one's self in others.

I'd like, each time out as a writer, to reinvent who I am and what I'm doing. That's one of the great pleasures and rewards of the occupation.

I used to work for 12 or 14 hours at a time but the digital age has made such happy immersions almost impossible.

I would say the flip side to my fascination with systems is a fascination with components. So many of my books are dialogues between little and big.

My goal for technology has always been to reach a point where the technological mediation becomes invisible.

What I really like to learn how to do is to build sentences that are equal to mental states.