All art began as sacred art, you know? I mean, all painting began as religious painting. All writing began as religious writing.

If you live in free countries, you don't have to spend all your life arguing about freedom because it is all around you. It seems redundant to make a lot of noise about something when, in fact, there it is. But if someone tries to remove it, it becomes important for you to formulate your own defenses of it.

I always thought the front line was the bookstores. And bookstores around America, around the world did astonishingly well. They held the line. They didn't chicken out. You know, they defended the book. They kept it in the front of the store.

Discovery is fun. I am incredibly open to everything.

Sometimes writing a novel is not unlike having a baby. You'd have to ask a female novelist to compare the pain.

I think the book is less emotional than the film. With the film, the emotions are much more raw and in front. In the book, they are kind of ironized and seen through comedy.

She saw him fracture into rainbow colors through the prism of her love.