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The thing about literature is that, yes, there are kind of tides of fashion, you know; people come in and out of fashion; writers who are very celebrated fall into, you know, people you know stop reading them, and then it comes back again.

I think the novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers. The novel receives streams of science, philosophy, poetry and contains all of these; it's not simply telling a story.

A book, like a landscape, is a state of consciousness varying with readers.

Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish.

The novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers.

Literature is the ditch I'm going to die in. It's still the thing I care most about.

As society diversifies, the number of people who read literature is decreasing. It will be difficult for readers to digest my ideas through literature.

I've summarized dozens of books in my literary career; it's become rather second nature.

The novel, as a genre, was once considered a diversion every bit as frivolous as Facebook, but over the years, we've managed to convince ourselves that reading fiction is as important to our mental digestion as fresh fruits and vegetables are to the processes that take place a little further down.

Literature at its fullest takes human nature as its theme. That's the kind of writing that interests me.