When I work, I'm just translating the world around me in what seems to be straightforward terms. For my readers, this is sometimes a vision that's not familiar. But I'm not trying to manipulate reality. This is just what I see and hear.

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

A dead afternoon in a dark bar was not the worst of fates.

People think about who they are in the stillest hour of the night.

A shrewd person would one day start a religion based on coincidence, if he hasn't already, and make a million.

It frequently happens that I begin a novel with just a visual image of something, a vague sense of people in three dimensional space.

Doesn't seem quite real. It's not meaningful. I can't quite imagine myself being 73. That's the age my father was! [Laughter.] How can I be his age? It's weird.