In my experience, writing a novel tends to create its own structure, its own demands, its own language, its own ending. So for much of the period in which I'm writing, I'm waiting to understand what's going to happen next, and how and where it's going to happen. In some cases, fairly early in the process, I do know how a book will end. But most of the time, not at all, and in this particular case, many questions are still unanswered, even though I've been working for months.

The world is full of abandoned meanings. In the commonplace I find unexpected themes and intensities.

A shrewd person would one day start a religion based on coincidence, if he hasn't already, and make a million.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

Why is it so hard to be serious, so easy to be too serious?

Bloomberg weighed three hundred pounds. This itself was historical. I revered his weight. It was an affirmation of humanity's reckless potential; it went beyond legend and returned through mist to the lovely folly of history. To weigh three hundred pounds. What devout vulgarity.

One connection I see between novelists and terrorists is that we both attempt to alter consciousness.