Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas.
Currently intellectuals in Western Europe and North America are extremely demoralized and shaken by the rise of a virulent conservative tendency (which some have even joined).
My ignorance is not charming.
The single most amazing phenomenon is the discrediting of idealism.
The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.
What I expect from writers-and from myself as a writer-is to articulate a complex view of things. To incite us to be more compassionate. To orchestrate our mourning. And to celebrate ecstasy.