It is the nature of the writer to question the validity of his world and yet rely on his senses to describe it. From what other tension can great literature be born?

I always try to be alert to the potential for repetition, for a decaying orbit with regard to my use of technique, etc.

Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough.

When you think about the complexity of our natural world - plants using quantum mechanics for photosynthesis, for example - a smartphone begins to look like a pretty dumb object.

The map had been the first form of misdirection, for what is a map but a way of emphasizing some things and making other things invisible?

Nothing that lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth.

There's also a lot of gritty Americana type of bands. I actually have a lot of Britpop on my iPod, too.

I also am not particularly risk-averse - I don't mind jumping off a cliff if I trust the people who've told me they'll catch me at the bottom.

Imbuing fiction with a life that extends beyond the last word is in some ways the goal: the ending that goes beyond the ending in the reader's mind, so invested are they in the story.

So many differing opinions and philosophies... are rarely housed under the roof of a single magazine.

Literary influences are harder for me to point to, because mostly it's a mulch of all of my past reading.

That is human nature, that people come after you, willingly enough, provided only that you no longer love or want them.

If you continue to dig the same hole in the same place in your life, eventually you will be standing in a grave.

of their passions in the same object at that particular time.

There is no self-portrait of me.

The interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world.

I think my kids give mommy more attention than they give me.

At the end of the day I want to wear everything.

America should function as a Christian nation.

Turn your scars into stars.

Shakespeare knew the human mind, and its most minute and intimate workings, and he never introduces a word, or a thought, in vain or out of place; if we do not understand him, it is our own fault.