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.

What interests me in [Lincoln in the Bardo] is a slight perverse balance between the sublime and the grotesque. Like you could have landed only on the sublime. But my argument is that the sublime couldn't exist without this other half.

Last year, when Zora was a freshman, sophomores had seemed altogether a different kind of human: so very definite in their tastes and opinions, in ther loves and ideas. Zora woke up this morning hopeful that a transformation of this kind might have visited her in the night, but, finding it hadn't, she did what girls generally do when they don't feel the part: she dressed it instead.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The object of the passion is just an accessory to the passion itself.

You are never stronger...than when you land on the other side of despair.

If you're going to write a good book, you have to make mistakes and you have to not be so cautious all the time.