We live in a trans period. Contemporary issues of sexuality, for example - the exciting aspects of them - have to do with transgenderedness. And there's trans-nationality. There are people like me, for example. I mean, what am I? Am I Indian? Am I American? And I'm not alone in being between things.

These new theories of the universe, that there are multiple universes just bubbling up constantly - it's all pretty wild.

Language itself is a mask. It's the first mask in the series of invented selves - they've come right out of language. The way you speak changes you, because when you are speaking, you are representing yourself in a certain way.

I resist thinking of myself as a teacher. I think of myself as a writer who has pulled a fast one and hoodwinked this institution into giving me a job and health insurance.

The sun does what it does because the earth tilts.

Technology is transforming everything. Who knows what it's doing, we don't really understand it.

I could say that in the essay, as it has developed historically, success is determined by the writer's ability to express, through an individual voice, a collective experience - you are speaking individually but you are representing collectively.