Nonfiction requires enormous discipline. You construct the terms of your story, and then you stick to them.

What we end up calling history is a kind of knife, slicing down through time. A few people are hard enough to bend its edge. But most won't even stand close to the blade. I'm one of those. We don't bend anything.

A sound-bite culture can't discuss science very well. Exactly what we're losing when we reduce biodiversity, the causes and consequences of global warming-these traumas can't be adequately summarized in an evening news wrap-up.

But Anatole said suddenly, 'Don't expect God's protection in places beyond God's dominion. It will only make you feel punished. I'm warning you. When things go bad, you will blame yourself.' 'What are you telling me?' 'I am telling you what I'm telling you. Don't try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you are good, bad things can still happen. And if you are bad, you can still be lucky.

We tap our toes to chaste love songs about the silvery moon without recognizing them as hymns to copulation.

Now I'm starting to think he wasn't supposed to be my whole life, he was just this doorway to me.

I write every moment that is humanly possible. I write every day and every night. The only discipline I lack is the discipline is to quit.