Making things difficult for the reader is less an attack on the reader than it is on the age and its facile knowledge-market.

Not long ago, a novelist could believe he could have an effect on our consciousness of terror. Today, the men who shape and inflence human consciousness are the terrorists.

All human existence is a trick of light.

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

You live in a tower that soars to heaven and goes unpunished by God.

Sometimes I see something so moving I know I’m not supposed to linger. See it and leave. If you stay too long, you wear out the wordless shock. Love it and trust it and leave.

The future is always a wholeness, a sameness. We're all tall and happy there,' she said. 'This is why the future fails. It always fails. It can never be the cruel happy place we want to make it.