Desperation, weakness, vulnerability - these things will always be exploited. You need to protect the weak, ring-fence them, with something far stronger than empathy.

You say you want to talk, But you don't . You stonewall me.

I know a lot of people who read and think: "George [Saunders] is so much fun." There's no denying you're fun to read, but as a writer I think of [George Saunders] as, in fact, not a fun and freewheeling type but really an obsessive control artist.

Don't we all know why nerds do what they do? To get money, which leads to popularity, which leads to girls.

Learning how to be a good reader is what makes you a writer.

…maybe the whole Internet will simply become like Facebook: falsely jolly, fake-friendly, self-promoting, slickly disingenuous….” - Zadie Smith

Writing is my way of expressing - and thereby eliminating - all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.