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

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.

Facts are lonely things.

The world isn't going to be destroyed, but you don't feel safe anymore in your plane or train or office or auditorium.

The modern meaning of life's end-when does it end? How does it end? How should it end? What is the value of life? How do we measure it?

That's why people take vacations. No to relax or find excitement or see new places. To escape the death that exists in routine things.

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.