Bloomberg weighed three hundred pounds. This itself was historical. I revered his weight. It was an affirmation of humanity's reckless potential; it went beyond legend and returned through mist to the lovely folly of history. To weigh three hundred pounds. What devout vulgarity.

We live in an age of rapid mass media, television, Internet. They determine our tempo, not books.

Even when you self-destruct, you want to fail more, lose more, die more than others, stink more than others.

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.

Pain is just another form of information.

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.

I used to think it was possible for an artist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory.