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" Canadian writers don't live in gated mansions; you can just talk to them when you see them lining up at the Second Cup. "

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" Men over 60 often think that if they wear athletic shoes - soft-soled referee shoes or hiking shoes or actual running shoes - then they will look more youthful. The contrary is true. "

" The locale does not determine the dress code; the host does. "

" Personally, I see little distinction between an artistic mentality and criminality. You couldn't possibly create a compelling story without some wickedness or some fascination with the disgusting. Being good is a hindrance to a writer. "

" It's great that I can look up a fact instantly on my cellphone, but I miss the days in my room with a dog-eared, text-heavy paperback, immersed in the statistics of crime and punishment and lunacy, completely alone with the narrative of human depravity. "

" I am so sick of being exhorted, as a writer, to improve the world by representing it in a more hopeful way. "

" All coffee shops now have WiFi. Why bring a book when you could be wittily attacking some idiot columnist on Twitter, or responding to your date requests, or posting a picture of your foot? All of that is more gripping and immediate and social than books. "

" Only a tiny portion of music history involves a singer and a lyric. Songs in music are generally thought to be a minor form. "

" What I don't understand is why men have decided that they like wearing hats indoors. It makes no sense to me. "

" Possibly the strangest book ever made, the 'Codex Seraphinianus' is an encyclopedia of an imaginary world, with illegible calligraphy - it is written in an alphabet no one can understand - and surreal drawings of odd beasts and machines. "

" In the best stories, people are morally complex; they are flawed. We read them because the world is flawed, and we want to see it truthfully represented. And because it can be thrilling to be shocked and upset, and even to feel, for chilling moments, what it's like to be a bad person. "

" There is actually no such thing as an Artist type. 'Artist' is just an economic designation, a box you tick on a form. We are all people, and we are all creative. "

" Unseasonal clothing actually only stands out when it's visibly uncomfortable. "

" What is a literary festival? Imagine a sort of cross between school and church. There are no actual festivities; what there are is a lot of public readings. "

" We are still vulnerable to gender-targeted marketing no matter how carefully we edit our children's bookshelves. "

" One of the qualities essential to writing exciting stories, whether for page or screen, is an ability to abandon one's morality. We simply cannot be good writers and good people. One must be able to access one's darkest self, one's venality and pettiness and murderousness. "

" Anyone who has set out to invent a purely imaginary story knows that the whole thing is fantasy, from beginning to end; there must be a sense of magic created about the most restrained of naturalism. "

" I'm in favour of hipster androgyny: Any trend that permits men to rebel against strict gender rules of appearance is going to make the world a more expressive and sensitive place for all of us. "

" What makes a publisher decide to market a book to a particular audience is not the subject matter but the style. "

" Songs are great. I love songs. I sing them in the shower sometimes. They can be poignant or cheery or angry, and they can have catchy and satisfying melodies. There's nothing wrong with songs. "

" No matter how fine your suit and your shoes, you will remind everyone that you are not yet a grownup man by wearing them with your old college knapsack, in its nasty, nylon glory. "

" I am indeed completely nuts, but that doesn't mean I don't care about how I look. Sometimes, I admit, I will privilege appearance over comfort. "

" A suit is just a suit: a practical garment, not a ceremonial robe; it can be worn out to dinner with friends or for a visit to an art gallery. Its beauty and craftsmanship are utterly wasted if you think of it as something magical and symbolic. "

" The only thing that makes a book YA is that it is about teenagers, and it is written in a very conventional, non-artsy, non-pretentious way. YA is not the place for the oblique or the cryptic. If it is in any way experimental in form, it is not YA. "

" No surprise here: Pop music is by far the most conservative art form there is. "

" Wear your clothes with abandon, I say; don't keep them pristine as if for museums: They are meant to wear out. Then you get to buy new ones. "

" What I would love to see is art that explicitly addresses not personal intimacies but anonymous intimacies: the vast collections of facts about you and me that now exist in giant server banks. "

" Here is a fundamental conflict in educated society: We are not supposed to value beauty so highly, and yet who can defend against its sheer power to move, its rhetorical force? "

" The novel is just fine: It's novelists who aren't doing so well. "

" I would rather be nuts than unattractive. "

" Indeed, the whole point of the man bun, I have surmised, is to assert a high proficiency at yoga. There are no yoga-achievement badges, no coloured belts like judo, so the male yoga expert needs some other kind of visible symbol. "