We'd never expect to understand a piece of music on one listen, but we tend to believe we've read a book after reading it just once.

Happy is what you realize you are a fraction of a second before it's too late.

Every great narrative is at least two narratives, if not more - the thing that is on the surface and then the things underneath which are invisible.

Books mean all possibilities. They mean moving out of yourself, losing yourself, dying of thirst and living to your full. They mean everything.

I wouldn't call my work Modernist. I would rust if I try to think about labels. I'd feel like the Tin Man in 'The Wizard of Oz.

To be known so well by someone is an unimaginable gift. But to be imagined so well by someone is even better.

Oh. To be filled with goodness then shattered by goodness, so beautifully mosaically fragmented by such shocking goodness.

Stella Duffy is a writer who never lets you down.

Do you come to art to be comforted, or do you come to art to be re-skinned?

Short stories consume you faster. They're connected to brevity. With the short story, you are up against mortality. I know how tough they are as a form, but they're also a total joy.

A good argument, like a good dialogue, is always a proof of life, but I'd much rather go and read a book.

Go with your bad self.

Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff are the best. You won't have me ever say a bad word about them.

As art sinks into paralysis, artists multiply. This anomaly ceases to be one if we realize that art, on its way to exhaustion, has become both impossible and easy.

I got involved because I wanted to help inspire more people to get off their butts and register and vote - not just in this election, but in every other election from now on, you know?

Festive alcohol sometimes leads to an excess of honesty.

Maybe Ridley was like chicken pox; you could only catch it once.

With an ear open to your musical dialectic, one can be young and become old, can work and rest, be content and sad: in short, one can live.

I don't like things to be static when I'm working.

Government can screw up just about everything. Given enough power and time it will screw up everything.

It was a typical day of suckage and blowage.’ (Chris)