He traced the genealogy of the feeling.

You can feel bad... I mean, that's not illegal.

To a novelist, fluidity is the ultimate good omen; suddenly difficult problems are simply solved, intractable structural knots loosen themselves, and you come upon the key without even recognizing that this is what you hold.

For example, you have these grotesque, hilarious, profane ghosts in the book [Lincoln in the Bardo]. Even the concept of talking ghosts is, from an aesthetic point of view, grotesque. But you seem compelled by that risk in order to get to the other end of the equation.

When I was young, I was very technical about these things. I didn't like to admit to any intimate relation with what I was writing.

Oh, I know that. You know me, baby, I cannot be broken. Takes a giant to snap me in half.

I always remind myself that [ Jean-Paul] Sartre and [Simone] de Beauvoir didn't have children. And when you don't have children, it might be easier to believe that the child doesn't come with something.