Perhaps this is what we mean by sanity: that, whatever our self-admitted eccentricities might be, we are not villains of our own stories.

It is dangerous to live in a secure world.

Love perhaps includes the promise that when the mob comes for you I'll go against the mob.

There is an expectation that we can talk about sins but no one must be identified as a sinner.

Things don't go away just because you choose to forget them.

Note-taking is important to me: a week's worth of reading notes (or "thoughts I had in the shower" notes) is cumulatively more interesting than anything I might be able to come up with on a single given day.

Yes, there's a relaying of internal states that only a novel can achieve. In my view, the novel is one of Europe's greatest gifts to the world. America and Africa collaborated to give the world jazz. We'll call it even.