The fantasies inspired by TB in the last century, by cancer now, are responses to a disease thought to be intractable and capricious--that is, a disease not understood--in an era in which medicine's central premise is that all diseases can be cured.

10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.

It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades.

The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream. A story should break the reader's heart.

I have to come out of the closet of the third person and speak in a more direct way.

The public voice in the theater today is crude and raucous, and, all too often, weak-minded.

I like to feel dumb. That’s how I know there’s more in the world than me.