“It amazes me that parents are allowed to raise kids. There's so much power and often very little accountability.” LittlesKidsParentRaisesAccountability Author:Ben Marcus
“Judaism to me, as badly as I practiced it, what I've always loved about it was its total embrace of complexity, its admission of unknowability.” EmbraceComplexityJudaismAdmission Author:Ben Marcus
“My first book, 'The Age of Wire and String,' came out in 1995, and it was hardly reviewed at all.” FirstsBookAgeStringsWire Author:Ben Marcus
“My parents showed me by example that they could balance their work and family lives.” ParentExampleBalanceFamily Life Author:Ben Marcus
“I work a lot in the summers. My family goes to Maine, where we have a little house. My wife's a writer, too, and we can write for six hours a day and then play with the kids.” WritingLittlesPlayKidsHouseHoursWifeSixSummerMy FamilyMy WifeMaine Author:Ben Marcus
“I work, and then I leave the office, and I'm with my kids and just sort of enjoy them on a visceral level, and I don't feel like I'm exorcising my own deep ideas about parenthood and about how my life will come into play in my work.” FeelsIdeasPlayKidsEnjoyMy OwnLevelsOfficeParenthoodVisceral Author:Ben Marcus
“I'm an enormous fan of Thomas Bernhard's books, and I like the relentless feeling in his work - the pursuit of darkness, the negative - and I think in some sense I've internalised that as what one is supposed to do.” ThinkingBookFeelingsDarknessFansNegativePursuitEnormousRelentless Author:Ben Marcus
“I'm attracted to how fraught the parent-child relationship is, swerving so easily between love and hostility, with almost no plausible way to end, unless someone dies.” WayChildrenEndsDiesParentHostilityPlausibleParent ChildParent Child Relationship Author:Ben Marcus
“I'm interested in the hope we invest in science, and the disappointment we can feel when science flattens, or 'explains,' the larger mysteries of religion.” FeelsMysteryDisappointment Author:Ben Marcus