Almost anything that you pay close, direct attention to becomes interesting.

Whatever you get paid attention for is never what you think is most important about yourself.

Like most North Americans of his generation, Hal tends to know way less about why he feels certain ways about the objects and pursuits he's devoted to than he does about the objects and pursuits themselves. It's hard to say for sure whether this is even exceptionally bad, this tendency.

The other half is to dramatize the fact that we still "are" human beings, now. Or can be.

Quentin Tarantino is interested in watching somebody's ear getting cut off; David Lynch is interested in the ear.

For those who've never experienced a sunrise in the rural midwest, it's roughly as soft and romantic as someone's abruptly hitting the lights in a dark room.

Writing fiction takes me out of time. I sit down and the clock will not exist for me for a few hours. That’s probably as close to immortal as we’ll ever get.