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" What is your identity, and how do you know who you are if you don't have language? "

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" Science has killed religion. There's no hope for the future with seven billion of us on the planet, and the only thing you can do is to laugh in the face of it all. "

" I'm enslaved to writing to the point where I sacrifice almost everything else. "

" I describe myself as an environmentalist not because I'm marching in the street with placards but because I like to be in the woods by myself. "

" It's true that none of my characters are admirable. But maybe I'm primarily a satirist, and a satirist needs to hold up what's not admirable. "

" I've never really been met with indifference, where they say, 'Who cares?' I think that's what good art is supposed to do. It's not supposed to make you feel good about your own prejudices and your own values; it's supposed to open you up in some way and get you outraged or make you happy or make you sad or whatever it's going to do. "

" This is the beauty of fiction. We may not like these characters, but we inhabit them. "

" I can't read novels while I'm writing a novel, because somebody's voice creeps in. "

" My job is to engage, entertain, work out my life, tell a certain truth. "

" I love performing in front of an audience. I like the questions; I like controversy. "

" I really like the power of stopping the laughter and turning it to horror. "

" You want, as an artist, to be pushing yourself to do what you haven't done before. "

" What higher art does is to invite us in and allow us to make decisions. "

" Books are up against TV and movies and video games and a multimedia society that is so busy that people don't have contemplative time any more. I worry deeply about this. In fact, I worry about everything all the time. I used to be a punk. All I wanted to do was tear everything down, and that was so much easier. "

" I'm just kind of fascinated by how we can deny that we are animals and what our impact on the other animals is like, and how quixotic we can be in trying to assess what we've done in trying to correct it. "

" Of course all novelists are egomaniacs and want to draw everyone to their fold just like any other preacher. The snake-oil peddler, the false prophet, all of this is fascinating to me. But I certainly hope that I'm more humane than that. "

" I think that's what art is about: to provoke you. It helps me make sense of a senseless universe because I become the god of the story. I create it, and I see it in all its lineaments in my own way and can control it - in a world in which everything else is out of control. "

" Look at Sam Beckett. Most depressed man who ever lived, but he sure was funny. "

" I never go anywhere without a book for fear of being stuck in line in front of the theater or strapped down in the dentist's chair and being bored witless. Thus, I read everywhere. "

" I envy Jesus because he's dead. "

" In previous generations, there was purpose; you had to die, but there was God, and literature and culture would go on. Now, there is no God, and our species is imminently doomed, so there is no purpose. We get up, raise families, have bank accounts, fix our teeth and everything else. But really, there is utterly no purpose except to be alive. "

" I'm not looking ahead joyfully to the rest of my life or the future of the human race. I've always written about man as an animal species among other animals, competing for limited resources. Our population is exploding. Our environment is dying. Science has debunked God. "

" I can't fathom writers married to writers and musicians married to musicians. There's your enemy in bed beside you. "

" If we lose sight of the fact that writing is entertainment, then writing is doomed. "

" I am a worrier. I worry about the state of our country, of the world, of our species. Every day seems to deliver a new nail to hammer into our collective coffin. "

" Life is tragic and absurd, and none of it has any purpose at all. "

" As humans, we all want our own island. Of course, the truth is, we're never going to get it. "

" It's just my natural way - to be funny. I don't know why that is. But as I've said, humor is a quick cover for shock, horror, confusion. The critics hate funny writers for the most part. They think funny is not serious, but I think that funny can be even more serious than nonfunny. And it can be more affecting, too. "

" This is why fiction is an art, and life is not - how much more affecting is the lie than the truth. "

" I do not want to repeat myself. I want to reach for something I've never attained. This is the excitement of art. "

" I think, if I'm doing my job correctly, I'm presenting a scenario for you as the reader to engage with on your own. I mean, that's what the best art is supposed to do. It's not supposed to be political. I think if you read all my books, you know where I stand, pretty much. "