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

I've never made an outline for any novel that I've written. Never.

Freud is finished, Einstein's next.

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.

...Because what's the meaning of doing dishes if you're not driven by something beyond necessity.

My attitudes aren't directed toward characters at all. I don't feel sympathetic toward some characters, unsympathetic toward others. I don't love some characters, feel contempt for others. They have attitudes; I don't.

I am ashamed every day, and more ashamed the next. But I will spend the rest of my life in this living space writing these notes, this journal, recording my acts and reflections, finding some honor, some worth at the bottom of things. I want ten thousand pages that will stop the world.