Talent is more erotic when it's wasted.

Stories have no point if they don't absorb our terror.

[I]n the American soul there is a lonely individual standing in a vast landscape. 
He is either on a horse or driving a car, depending, and either way he’s carrying a gun. 
This is one of the essential images in American mythology.

Longing on a large scale makes history.

Isn't death the boundary we need? Doesn't it give a precious texture to life, a sense of definition? You have to ask yourself whether anything you do in this life would have beauty and meaning without the knowledge you carry of a final line, a border or limit.

I would never write in response to what I believe the public wanted or needed.

...Because what's the meaning of doing dishes if you're not driven by something beyond necessity.