There's a curious knot that binds novelists and terrorists...Years ago I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory. They make raids on human consciousness. What writers used to do before we were all incorporated.

When birds look into houses, what impossible worlds they see.

If I were a writer, how I would enjoy being told the novel is dead. How liberating to work in the margins, outside a central perception. You are the ghoul of literature. Lovely.

The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever.

Was she naked?" Lasher said. "To the waist," Cotsakis said. "From which direction?" Lasher said.

It's healthier to reject certain cautions than fall in line.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.