I am excited by... the new novel by Samantha Hunt. She's a writer I really admire a lot.

I have worked really hard to defy categorization, to break down a taxonomy whenever it comes my way.

Impotence, fetishism, bisexuality, and bondage are all facts of life, and our fiction should reflect that.

The past was so past it hurt.

I think literature is best when it's voicing what we would prefer not to talk about.

I am in Boston right now, in fact, to do work at the New England Historical Genealogical Library, where I'm trying to finish up tracing my lineage back to the seventeenth century.

I suppose I should say that I treasure blasphemy, as a faith of the highest order.

Genre is a bookstore problem, not a literary problem.

I judged about a zillion awards this year so Ive been reading a lot of books that just came out.

It's also true, however, that having conquered the regional writer ghetto, I am now intent on conquering the nationalist writer ghetto and moving out into the world more.

I'm trying to read more dead people because I keep having to read stuff for juries and so forth.

I believed our touching to be more intense because of it's very holding back. Belief is always a choice.

[Economics] is all about observing the world with genuine curiosity and admitting that it is full of mysteries

The school-boy doesn't force himself to learn his vocabularies and rules altogether at night, but knows that be must impress them again in the morning.

We are a categorically obsessed culture, where we have to compartmentalize everything in reference to another thing, like, 'What does it sound like? Does it sound like this?

Go to a place and just send out emails. That's my entire life. I go to countries and I ask, "Who would I know who lives here?" Not even do I know, but who exists and is on the planet.

Once you make up your mind never to stand waiting and hesitating when your conscience tells you what you ought to do, and you have got the key to every blessing that a sinner can reasonably hope for.

The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible. Exceptions only confirm this rule, proving that failure is occasioned by a too feeble faith.

Having a holiday weekend without a family member felt like putting on a sweater that had an extra arm.

Shoulda, coulda, and woulda won't get it done.

In any event, the problem in Iran is much bigger than weapons. The problem is the terrorist regime that seeks the weapons. The regime must go.