Jonathan Franzen

Only in my 40s did I become a person whose heart lifts whenever he hears a grosbeak singing or a towhee calling, and who hurries out to see a golden plover that's been reported in the neighbourhood, just because it's a beautiful bird, with truly golden plumage, and has flown all the way from Alaska.

I was unwise enough to actually mention this in public a few times, and in fact to point out that there were two versions of the book now. One of them had somebody else's name on the cover, one had my name on the cover.

I'm a poor person who has money.

I hate Whole Foods.

I know what paranoia is like. I know what it is like to worry about what people are saying about you and become obsessed with what people are saying about you.

If you're interested in how people behave, if you're interested in the way they talk about themselves, the way the conceive of themselves, it's very hard to ignore drugs nowadays, because that is so much part of the conversation.

I don't dislike people; I love people.

A big part of me would be very proud never having anything of mine adapted, because if you want the real experience, there's only one way to get it. You're going to actually have to be a reader.

For most of my life, I didn't pay attention to birds.

The Mekons were kind of like the background music of my life.

It seems to me self-evident that if you have a life, things happen in it, and certain things do change; certain things end. People you know die.

To read is to have experiences; every book changes my life at least a little bit. The first time I can remember this happening was when I was 10, with a biography of Thomas Edison.