There's no need to inundate the world with books and language. It's just too full already. There's so much rubbish hiding in the world. But as long as I think I can do something inventive and insightful, then I'll keep doing it.

Metafiction says something. It has to do with taking a large fiction itself and writing within it; that kind of self-reflecting writing that emerges from it can be thought of as metafictional.

If you start thinking about the kids being born now, for them the computer is ancient history. So one imagines that when children think of it as the only place to be, because there isn't anywhere else, then the geniuses of those generations will find their way into doing something that is impressive and as good as a Shakespeare or a Cervantes. But nowadays, we can't see that. We're not close enough to it yet.

I see no reason to stop writing. But the reason isn't always one of your own. The mind is not invulnerable, and it can lose some of its powers.

Some ways of naming a generation are fruitful and some are not. Postmodernism is not. It doesn't really say anything.

We need myths to get by. We need story; otherwise the tremendous randomness of experience overwhelms us. Story is what penetrates.

I learned my realism from guys like Kafka.