Without the balancing context of everyday life, all you have is the news, and news by its nature is generally bad.

Sometimes, one wants to have the illusion that one is making ones own life, out of ones own resources.

I like books that don't give you an easy ride. I like the feeling of discomfort. The sense of being implicated.

I'm not sure if you're the person for me any more.

Any woman who counts on her face is a fool.

When people use that stream of consciousness, it's kind of just a term they use for anything that looks slightly different on the page.

Something in me was changed by Lincoln in the Bardo, and the great sublime/grotesque risk of [George Saunders'] ghosts was a part of it.