“I grew up in a university town in eastern North Carolina - what's call...” — Garth Risk Hallberg Quote

I grew up in a university town in eastern North Carolina - what's called Tobacco Road. It was very rural.

Sure, 'Les Miserables' can be melodramatic. And seeing the musical instead of reading the novel will save you some time and spare you the long part where Hugo goes on and on about the Parisian sewer system. But I would hate for the novel to lose that.

I was working my first adult job, a quasi journalistic job, writing content for a website. In the offices, we had banks of TVs, papers, a constant media stream, which was unusual for 2001.

I came to feel that, in addition to Imre Kertesz, Hungary has produced at least three contemporary novelists who deserve the Nobel: Peter Nadas, Peter Esterhazy and Laszlo Krasznahorkai.

I can tell you as a black person in South Carolina whose grandparents grew up through Jim Crow, when you lose the courts and justice no longer becomes just, we're in a world of trouble.

If you look at my track record, there was nothing on radio that sounded like 'Oh Carolina,' 'Mr Bombastic' when they came out.

I went to college in North Carolina, so something about being in the East Coast is home for me.

The United States isn't a racist country. South Carolina isn't a racist state. And we've moved on from our nation's racist past.

I'm always down in North Carolina hanging out with my friends. In fact, I was just there a few months ago.