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.

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.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

When people use that stream of consciousness, it's kind of just a term they use for anything that looks slightly different on the page.

In a whisper he began begging for—and, as the sun set, received—the concession people always beg for: a little more time.

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.

Don't we all know why nerds do what they do? To get money, which leads to popularity, which leads to girls.