Trauma, and certain important experiences, can imprint on us at a genetic level.

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.

You have what it takes to finish excellently if you strive toward it

You know that saying about how you don’t know what you have until it’s gone? I already did know what I had, and now that she’s gone, I know even more.

Everything that God gives to us is to be used for the establishing of His Kingdom here on earth.

Medicine’s a funny business. After all, dispensing chemicals is considered mainstream and diet and nutrition is considered alternative.

I'll tell you what leadership is. It's persuasion and conciliation, and education, and patience.

The people that hurt you are the ones you love because you are the most open to them.

Whatever attitudes we habitually use toward ourselves, we will use on others, and whatever attitudes we habitually use toward others, we will use on ourselves.

For a much lauded writer, I'm not terribly self-absorbed. In social situations, which are difficult for me - I mean, this is an interview - I'm normally uncomfortable talking about myself.

My aim is to institute perpetual adoration," he said, for this is the "the most important activity.

I'm still not sure I didn't hallucinate the conversation while overdosing on his pheromones.