We surrounded ourselves with smoke and loud noise. That's the way we chose to live. I'm prepared to defend it.

I was never either pro-culture or counter-culture. I was in a kind of middle state.

Your brain has a trillion neurons and every neuron has ten thousand little dendrites. The system of inter-communication is awe-inspiring.

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.

Only a catastrophe gets our attention. We want them, we depend on them. As long as they happen somewhere else. This is where California comes in. Mud slides, brush fires, coastal erosion, mass killings, et cetera. We can relax and enjoy these disasters because in our hearts we feel that California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

He said, "The word for moonlight is moonlight.

I think fiction comes from everything you've ever done, and said, and dreamed, and imagined. It comes from everything you've read and haven't read... I think my work comes out of the culture of the world around me. I think that's where my language comes from.