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?

I do my best work under pressure, so I’ll nick an artery, and my husband isn’t allowed to stanch the bleeding till I’ve banged out a chapter.

You're a library of me.

Full stories are as rare as honesty.

Those beliefs about the essential goodness or beauty of the world are fundamentally paper-thin bullshit. There's not an essential belief that isn't a contingent belief. It could all be destroyed in a second, at any second. And I have an issue with that.

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.

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?