Everything I've stated may prove to be total poppycock.... Perhaps time will tell. Perhaps time will do nothing of the kind.

And what's the point of waking up in the morning if you don't try to match the enormousness of the known forces in the world with something powerful in your own life?

I hate my life. I'm at the point where I want to hear about other people's lives. it's like switching from fiction to biography.

Something lurked inside the truth.

the instant he knew he loved her, she slipped down his body and out of his arms

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.

A novel determines its own size and shape and I've never tried to stretch an idea beyond the frame and structure it seemed to require.