I'm not even sure if empathy is an act, it could be a disposition.

Toronto is hard to capture in a few strokes.

Paranoia can be a sign of a sanity in some circumstances, in some places and times.

Absurdity isn't quite so absurd as it once was.

I just write what I want to read, and sometimes keeping it interesting means adding one more element that ends up adding another year to the work.

I love poetry, read it a lot, but make no claim to being able to write it.

The idea that language can be recombined to create new forms, new things, is of course very old in poetry.

We're getting used to reality and fantasy passing into each other. Much of the border between them has been erased.

It's fiction's job to express how it feels to be living now, and it's a complex feeling, full of contradiction. To me it often feels like a brutal trivialization of reality.

I seem always to have two or three novels going at once. It takes me a long time to finish one.

We want to know that we're not alone with our loneliness or loss.

Wherever you are—be there.

Beneath the instinct to fight there lurks a diviner instinct to love.

Others may not understand your joy and contentment because of your certainty about who you are and why you exist. Don't waste your time to explain.

I'm just trying to grow. That's one thing I told myself is, 'Don't worry about who people say is the best player.'

Kids are absolutely starved for positive adult contact.

Living for Christ is a day-to-day going on with Him. It is a continuous dependence upon the Spirit of God. It is believing in His faithfulness.

If our failure to consistently worship the true God is the key feature of sin, we are sinners all.

I can't stand modern movies. The images are too weird and eccentric for me.

I'm a Giants fan through and through. I am crazy about Eli Manning. I'm all about the Giants.

[Writers are] the highest paid secretaries in the world.