Something in me was changed by Lincoln in the Bardo, and the great sublime/grotesque risk of [George Saunders'] ghosts was a part of it.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

I told you that I would protect you. Even if you don't want me to, " he whispered, moving closer and pulling me against him. "Some things are worth protecting

And then he kissed me, and when the haze of lust cleared and my knees found their strength, and all I could think was Oh Shit

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they see nothing but sea.

Although it is generally known, I think it's about time to announce that I was born at a very early age.

I feel like I've won the tournament.

HD doesn't mean anything to me. It's a technical thing. It's like demographics. A lot of people know about it.

Writing is the only trade I know of in which sniveling confessions of extreme incompetence are taken as credentials probative of powers to astound the multitude.

That's what I realized: if I did get her back somehow, she wouldn't fill the hole that losing her created.

I don't think ultimately God punishes. I think we bring about our own destruction or our own creation.

It used to be you wanted to marry up.