One of the reasons I always come back to representations of loneliness in plays, films, and literature is that they give us specific examples of the powerful hold that it has on us, and yet, paradoxically, by representing what can't really be represented, so to speak, they give us ways of going forward even as we fall apart.

We can never leave loneliness behind completely - it is part of what forms us.

It is an admonition to myself when I am reading other people's books. Writing a book is very difficult to do, even a bad one. I try to remember that when reading someone else's work.

I worry that we don't currently have a democracy in the United States. Instead we have what [political philosopher] Sheldon Wolin has recently labeled a sort of inverted totalitarianism.

I look back on some of my early reviews of others, and realize to my chagrin that I've been as guilty as anybody else on that front.

I'm pretty sure my dog, Pip, gets lonely when there is no one to be with him. But we humans can end up with a gnawing worry about that separation possibly becoming a permanent condition.

One of the reasons I always come back to representations of loneliness in plays, films, and literature is that they give us specific examples of the powerful hold that it has on us, and yet, paradoxically, by representing what can't really be represented, so to speak, they give us ways of going forward even as we fall apart.