Last year, when Zora was a freshman, sophomores had seemed altogether a different kind of human: so very definite in their tastes and opinions, in ther loves and ideas. Zora woke up this morning hopeful that a transformation of this kind might have visited her in the night, but, finding it hadn't, she did what girls generally do when they don't feel the part: she dressed it instead.

[George Saunders] is very precise about what he is doing. There isn't a thing left to chance.

What interests me in [Lincoln in the Bardo] is a slight perverse balance between the sublime and the grotesque. Like you could have landed only on the sublime. But my argument is that the sublime couldn't exist without this other half.

For ridding oneself of faith is like boiling seawater to retrieve the salt--something is gained but something is lost.

There's a perception that novels can't usually allow for your kind of absolute attention to detail.

I love to dance, and sing - in the shower, not in public. Im too old to go raving, but my fondest memories are of that kind of thing - dancing, with lots of people, outside if possible.

Are there other people who, when watching a documentary set in a prison, secretly think, as I have, 'Wish I had all that time to read'?