I knew that I wanted to be a writer even before I knew exactly what being a writer entailed

Once evolution gets a good basic design, it tends to throw away the variants and concentrate on the near-infinite diversity within that design.

If our god's work is to be done in our time, we must do it ourselves.

Most of us do know we have no immortality. And when you've found a genius, someone who has already purchased his immortality in musical or literary terms, it's maddening.

Evolution brings human beings. Human beings, through a long and painful process, bring humanity.

There's a unique bond of trust between readers and authors that I don't believe exists in any other art form; as a reader, I trust a novelist to give me his or her best effort, however flawed.

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