It's true that some of us become better writers by living long enough. But this is also how we become worse writers. The trick is to die in between.

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

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

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

War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.

I don't want to do the type of writing where I recite biography, parentage and education. I want to rise up from the words on the page and do something, hurt someone.

I felt myself getting whiter... What does it mean to become white? How does it feel to see Death in the flesh, come to gather you in?