"When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced."[Books vs. Goons, L.A. Times, April 24, 2005]"
"Friendships are the family we make - not the one we inherit. I've always been someone to whom friendship, elective affinities, is as important as family."
"Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one."
"If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion, I would say I was against it."
"I do have a lot of time for people in my life, and friendship is a very important subject for me. I think I'm unusual among the writers I know in that respect."
"A poet's work . . . to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep."