[I]n the American soul there is a lonely individual standing in a vast landscape. 
He is either on a horse or driving a car, depending, and either way he’s carrying a gun. 
This is one of the essential images in American mythology.

The term itself--my life--is a desperate overstatement.

Naturally a direct comparison of terrorist and novelist is complete nonsense. But there was once a time when the novelist also had some influence on how his contemporaries thought, the way they saw the world, the way they lived.

Something is always happening, even on the quietest days and deep into the night, if you stand a while and look.

That's what in theory differentiates a writer from everyone else. You see and hear more clearly.

When my head is in the typewriter the last thing on my mind is some imaginary reader. I don't have an audience; I have a set of standards.

Past, present and future are not amenities of language. Time unfolds into the seamsof being. It passes through you, making and shaping.