Randomness I love. And I still love just a holler right in the middle of an ongoing narrative. Pain or joy, ecstasy.

A writers job is to destroy and then to build the thing back up again by a chosen means.

Most novels I come across have all the excitement of a long trip on a bus with a sensitive glee club. Yammer and chat.

I never pulled a loaded pistol on anybody, but it got around that I did. It got turned into lore. It's a myth. There's so much bad gun stuff.

I grew up when people seemed actually to be hurting themselves for their art. Of course, some of it was phony.

I'll tell you why I like writing: it's just jumping into a pool. I get myself into a kind of trance. I engage the world, but it's also wonderful to just escape. I try to find the purities out of the confusion. It's pretty old-fashioned, but it's fun.

You need to see a bit of hell now and then. That, and great joy.