He’s just another man who wants to teach me something.

Literature and art are one of a number of relationships I have with the world. Like you have relationships with your friends and a relationship with your lover and your relationship with your family and your relationship with your work - sometimes it's really great; sometimes it's non-existent, sometimes it's fruitful.

I'm in a serious monogamous relationship, and I don't want to keep having different boyfriends, and I have this instead - with men and women. It's better. Instead of having sex, we have art.

To go on and on about your soul is to miss the whole point of life. I could say that with more certainty if I knew the whole point of life.

I feel like one can have all of that as a writer; you're writing, you're reading, you're talking to interesting and intelligent people. Your life is structured around whatever book you're writing, and so is your reading and so are many of your conversations.

There are times when things are clear in your head and your heart and everything comes all aligned and it's easy and it just feels good to do something. But most of the time it's not like that. Most of the time there's conflict between your head and your heart.

We don't know the effects we have on each other, but we have them.