Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

I'm suspicious of places that look decorated. I can understand why people do it, but you see too many cushions or a piece of fabric hanging and it's, like, 'Ugh!' A good house with good art will always work, no matter what.

My Google existence is probably larger than a lot of people's.

The thing about living in the 21st century is you can get to fortysomething and not have anyone major in your life die.

The one thing about my life that's different from others is that I wake up for no one, and for some reason, that's just good for your creativity.

I've always thought that you live in the present, you live in a specific present. You are writing, present tense, so write in the present as it is.

The Internet has destroyed irony in the world, or at least wounded it considerably. What are we to do about an invention whose end result is that starving people in China are looking up things on marthastewart.com?

Comedy is the difference between how you see a person and how they see themselves.

I'm always looking for things that are so incredibly present that they become invisible.

If you write fiction, you have to love your characters. It's like your family. You don't have to like them, but you have to love them.

If you have a great idea, you should be able to communicate it as well. It's like the sound of one hand clapping. You have a great idea but aren't able to express it - well, how great was the idea?

When you write, it's just a much more crystalline, compressed version of the voice you think with - though not the one you speak with. I think your writing voice is your laser-guided missile. It's the poetry part of you.

We were never supposed to live until 40. We were built to self-destruct at 30, whether from cancer or mental illness. We're all going way beyond our expiration date.

I tend to look for pathologies everywhere.

The way we experience history and time in all its forms shifted quite massively between 1989 and 2001 - to the point where contrivances like decades are now kind of silly.

Any passion to collect has some meaning behind it.

I'm agoraphobic. I can't deal with crowds.

Nobody likes being told who or what they are.

In Canada, we're happy to provide a safe haven for next-door neighbors in the middle of a marital dispute. And if anyone trips while crossing the border, we're happy to set their broken bones for free.

I think most people either forget or don't know that Microsoft only hires people with I.Q.'s well over 130.

I think half the people who get married now have met online. If I think about all the people in my life who married - they met online, online, online. And it makes sense if you think about it, because you fill out this form of 35 things that really define you and - bam - look, you've got two people who match. It works.

In my mind, I've always checked out in 2037; that's always been my expiration date. I'll be 75.

My house. It's kind of eccentric. It's two decades worth of accumulated personal projects. Yeah, it is pretty dense in my house.