Novels and stories are sometimes very complex staging grounds to say, in fact, very simple things. Things impossible to say otherwise because they are repeated in so many exploitative contexts - adverts and TV shows and political speeches.

You don't come to live here unless the delusion of a reality shaped around your own desires isn't a strong aspect of your personality. A reality shaped around your own desires - there is something sociopathic in that ambition.

When I see my friends engaging in a Twitter war for an afternoon, I think that would destroy me for a month.

The world is now multicultural the same way the world is round. It's not a selling point, it's not a 'quirky' feature, it's not a cynical marketing ploy, it's not an artistic statement, it's not even a plot device. It's a fact, like seedless grapes.

Surely there is something to be said for drawing a circle around our attention and remaining within that circle. But how large should this circle be?

For me, George Saunders novel [Lincoln in the Bardo] is about a problem of pain.

An essential part of power is the freedom not to think too deeply