Prison always has been a good place for writers, killing, as it does, the twin demons of mobility and diversion

Life is brutal that way ... the loss of irrecoverable moments amid trivia and distraction.

Once upon a time ... the only autonomous intelligences we humans knew of were us humans. We thought then that if humankind ever devised another intelligence that it would be the result of a huge project ... a great mass of silicon and ancient transistors and chips and circuit boards ... a machine with lots of networking circuits, in other words, aping-if you will pardon the expression-the human brain in form and function. Of course, AIs did not evolve that way. They sort of slipped into existence when we humans were looking the other way.

You have to live to really know things, my love

The truth is, it's not a great career move to create a readership and then, in effect, abandon them.

I now understand the need for faith - pure, blind, fly-in-the-face-of-reason faith - as a small life preserver in the wild and endless sea of a universe ruled by unfeeling laws and totally indifferent to the small, reasoning beings that inhabit it.

Artists recognize other artists as soon as the pencil begins to move.