And I suddenly think, as I look across the table at him, that these are the days as they will be. This is the future as we see it. The swerve and the static. The confidence and the doubt.

Personally, I like the social novel. I like writing that gets in and under the hood and looks about - at what's going on. But I don't say to any writer that that's absolutely what they should do.

Give life long enough and it will solve all your problems, including the one of being alive.

The stars looked like nail heads in the sky--pull a few of them out and the darkness would fall.

Everything was fabulous, even our breakdowns.

I think one of the biggest political failures, and the biggest social failures, over the past few years has been the failure of empathy; not being able to look at the other person down the street.

It struck me that distant cities are designed precisely so you can know where you came from.