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?

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

A mystery novel localizes the awesome force of the real death outside the book, winds it tightly in a plot.

The less there was to see, the harder he looked, the more he saw. (Point Omega)

That's the world out there, little green apples and infectious disease.

I am not particularly distressed by the state of fiction or the role of the writer. The more marginal, perhaps ultimately the more trenchant and observant and finally necessary he'll become.

It is interesting ... how weapons reflect the soul of the maker.