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

I'm always interested in the way people speak and move in their environment, in a very particular environment. I'm never interested in writing a kind of neutral, universal novel that could be set anywhere. To me, the any novel is a local thing always.

But sometimes it's like you just meet someone and you just know that you're totally connected, and this person is, like, your brother - or your sister. Even if they don't, like, recognize it, you feel it. And in a lot of ways it don't matter if they do or they don't see that for what it is - all you can do is put the feeling out there. That's your duty. Then you just wait and see what comes back to you. That's the deal.

…maybe the whole Internet will simply become like Facebook: falsely jolly, fake-friendly, self-promoting, slickly disingenuous….” - Zadie Smith

It's still easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure faith, on the globe.

All my books are made up of other books. They're all deeply structured on other fiction, because I was a student in fiction and I didn't have much actual living to draw on. I suspect a lot of other people's novels are like that, too, though they might be slower to talk about it.

When the male organ of a man stands erect, two thirds of his intelect go away. And one third of his religion.