I'm trying to make sure that there's comedy as well as sadness. It makes the sadness more memorable.

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.

Do you know what the best and worst thing about a book is? The author can't answer all your questions, only your imagination can.

A Japanese proverb says fall seven times, stand up eight. We can also say this: Hate zero times, love infinitely!

He kissed her for an eternity, which was fine, because heaven had eternities to burn. Then he kissed her for another.

I would not have shied away from an assignment to sail a canoe around Cape Horn or to take charge of the government of Afghanistan.

It reminded me of that tongue-in-cheek quick history of art I'd overheard...Used to be people couldn't draw very well, then they could, and now they can't again.

I know that John Adams has had a very hard time directing French ensembles.

Once you can express yourself, you can tell the world what you want from it. All the changes in the world, for good or evil, were first brought about by words.

You have to be rather straightforward with your clients. You can't tell the parties only nice things. This is not an entertainment show; it's not reality television either.

There is another element that is a part of human happiness — and that is that unless we think of others and do something for them we miss the greatest sources of happiness.

The great problem of the concert hall is that the shoebox is the ideal shape for acoustics but that no architect worth their names wants to build a shoebox.