Clouds are no deterrent. Clouds intensify the drama, trap and shape the light.

In this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that he aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down. It's the drowning out of false voices.

These are the days after. Everything now is measured by after.

Doesn't seem quite real. It's not meaningful. I can't quite imagine myself being 73. That's the age my father was! [Laughter.] How can I be his age? It's weird.

holes are interesting. there are books about holes.

It's impossible to write about the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath without taking note of twenty-five years of paranoia which has collected around that event.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.