The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.

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.

For ridding oneself of faith is like boiling seawater to retrieve the salt--something is gained but something is lost.

Nowadays, I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own.

There's a perception that novels can't usually allow for your kind of absolute attention to detail.

It was in the air, or so it seemed to Kiki, this hatred of women and their bodies- it seeped in with every draught in the house; people brought it home on their shoes, they breathed it in off their newspapers. There was no way to control it.

The last page of [Lincoln in the Bardo] - without giving too much away - involves somebody entering somebody else. Not in a sexual way. But it says one of the simplest things you could ever say, which is that we must try and be inside each other. We must have some kind of feeling for each other and enter into each other's experience.