If my career continues along its current arc, people will probably look at me and see a writer who is obsessed with the relationship between rich and poor and with how the rich somehow or other always manage to betray the poor, even when they don't mean to.

If there's an enduring theme in my work, it's probably the effects of class on American life.

A couple years ago, the novelist Russell Banks told me he was reading the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. I asked why. He said, 'Because I've always wanted to and am tired of having my reading assigned.' I thought it was a marvelous declaration of independence.

Knowing and knowing what to do about it were two different things.

He looks like he could be taken in a fight. Not by me, but by somebody. Not anyone in Humanities, probably.

I was the one who did come through that door. You were the one she was waiting for.

What I discovered I liked best about striking out on my bicycle was that the farther I got from home, the more interesting and unusual my thoughts became.