I'm thinking about past events. I'm interested in recall, exact recall, of what was said, who said it and to whom. I want to know the truth, undistorted by time and revision and wishes and regrets.

Your memories from your early childhood seem to have such purchase on your emotions. They are so concrete.

Occupy Wall Street means making Wall Street and the corporate power elite understand that the people affected by the binge of unregulated greed are not going away, and they are not going to give up.

All roads lead to Wall Street, but we feel the effects of Wall Street on every street corner. Certainly in Syracuse, N.Y., where I live.

The issue isn't, Am I good enough? No. The issue is, Do I not have any other choice? Will and desire don't matter. Ability doesn't matter. Need is the only thing that matters.

The novel is about, for me, sustained and organized looking. I do think that people have a hunger for a sustained engagement, that concentration that the book can offer.

I am always trying to do something new and different. The first step is curiosity, questions. You pay attention to what fascinates you. If you can't shake it, there is something there.

In order to be a living, breathing thing, a novel has to be failed in some kind of way. Or at least that's how I keep writing them.

I have to say that movies have as much impact on me as music. And that I learned as much about narrative from movies as I did from reading novels, how to arrange stories, how to juxtapose things.

A good novel should be deeply unsettling - its satisfactions should come from its authenticity and its formal coherence. We must feel something crucial is at stake.

Yes, I did try acting when I was in high school and I was terrible at it. So I definitely have had the experience of being bad at artistic endeavor.

Just stop, for once, answering my questions with a question. And, incidentally, it's my concern because I care about you.

Artists strive for perfection. But what they often fail to see is that the beauty, the humanity, lies within the flaws.

I hope to have communion with the people, that is the most important thing.

When I am battered and oppressed by the world that humanity has made - which is difference from the world that is was given - my primary defense, my consolation, is the absurdity of that world

The stain of prejudice is often indelible.

To let go in the deepest recesses of the heart, to release all struggle and wanting, leads us to that knowing which is timeless.

But who can distinguish between falling in love and imagining falling in love? Even genuinely falling in love is an act of the imagination.

If governments encourage people to become more spiritual there will be a reduction in healthcare costs.

When you feel down, go be a blessing to somebody else.

There is a Tony the Tiger inside of all of us just waiting to be unleashed.