(and Catholics give out forgiveness at about the same rate as politicians give out promises and whores give out)

English fiction was something I loved growing up, and it changed my life - it changed the trajectory of my life.

The lady was old, the lady was ill. It didn't matter what the lady believed.

The future's another country, man... And I still ain't got a passport.

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.

No matter what anyone says, suicide takes guts. It's for heroes and martyrs, truly vainglorious men. Archie was none of these. He was a man whose significance in the Greater Scheme of Things could be figured along familiar ratios: Pebble : Beach Raindrop : Ocean Needle : Haystack

I like books that expose me to people unlike me and books that do battle against caricature or simplification. That, to me, is the heroic in fiction.