“What is more useless than the popular novel that has passed its boom!”

“...My grandpa has always told us that you know you're in love when your heart goes "boom." The way he explained this "boom" is that it's not the giddy feeling you get when you first meet someone; it's deeper than that. It's more of a low, bellowing boom that resonates in your body the moment you realize you need someone, you love someone. It's more a boooom than a boom! I have yet to feel it.”

“People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are.”

“I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?”

“Fiction is most effective when its themes are unspoken. An ideal fiction has a kind of thematic ghostliness, whereby the novel marks its meanings most strongly as it passes, as it disappears, rather as on a street snow gets dirtier, more marked, as it disappears.”

“A novel is no different than graffiti in a bathroom stall, it's just more pretentious.”