True terror is a language and a vision. There is a deep narrative structure to terrorist acts, and they infiltrate and alter consciousness in ways that writers used to aspire to.

All human existence is a trick of light.

I am ashamed every day, and more ashamed the next.

She became confused when she stepped onto an escalator that wasn't working.

There is a set of balances and rhythms to a novel that we can't experience in real life. So I think there is a sense in which fiction can rescue history from confusion.

Maybe when we die, the first thing we'll say is 'I know this feeling. I was here before'.

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