It's also true, however, that having conquered the regional writer ghetto, I am now intent on conquering the nationalist writer ghetto and moving out into the world more.

I have worked really hard to defy categorization, to break down a taxonomy whenever it comes my way.

Impotence, fetishism, bisexuality, and bondage are all facts of life, and our fiction should reflect that.

The past was so past it hurt.

I think literature is best when it's voicing what we would prefer not to talk about.

I am in Boston right now, in fact, to do work at the New England Historical Genealogical Library, where I'm trying to finish up tracing my lineage back to the seventeenth century.

I suppose I should say that I treasure blasphemy, as a faith of the highest order.

Genre is a bookstore problem, not a literary problem.

I judged about a zillion awards this year so Ive been reading a lot of books that just came out.

I'm trying to read more dead people because I keep having to read stuff for juries and so forth.

Major theme of the book ["Hotels of North America"], from my point of view: what is persona, what is self, in the digital sphere, and/or what is the effect of it on self in a prolonged interaction.

There are no free lunches in philosophy any more than in real life.

There's no end. There's no endto this world, everlasting.We crumble to dust in its arms.

Writers read essays and serious thinkers and serious readers... that is a small population.

We could have chopped down the sycamore with this.

I've always thought of myself as an African-American comedian, African-American man, everything.

The universe is not made up of atoms; it’s made up of tiny stories.

Before my birth there was infinite time, and after my death, inexhaustible time. I never thought of it before: I'd been living luminously between two eternities of darkness.

I have been incredibly privileged with my roles - after all I have had the chance to do some fantastic fun acting such as the Spice Girls Movie - who can ever forget that!

You know that you wouldn't take a baby on a plane without diapers, so when you leave your house, take care of you, like you would a baby. Don't leave your house without packing some healthy things.

Whenever a woman says 'We need to talk,' it means she's reached a decision and it's already too late for you to talk back.