Silence, exile, cunning and so on... it's my nature to keep quiet about most things. Even the ideas in my work.

Writing is a concentrated form of thinking...a young writer sees that with words he can place himself more clearly into the world. Words on a page, that's all it takes to help him separate himself from the forces around him, streets and people and pressures and feelings. He learns to think about these things, to ride his own sentences into new perceptions.

Time seems to pass. The world happens, unrolling into moments, and you stop to glance at a spider pressed to its web. There is a quickness of light and a sense of things outlined precisely and streaks of running luster on the bay. You know more surely who you are on a strong bright day after a storm when the smallest falling leaf is stabbed with self-awareness. The wind makes a sound in the pines and the world comes into being, irreversibly, and the spider rides the wind-swayed web.

Do people still shoot at presidents? I thought there were more stimulating targets.' (20)

He wanted paper and something to write with, some way to sustain a thought, to place it in the world.

The less there was to see, the harder he looked, the more he saw. (Point Omega)

That's the world out there, little green apples and infectious disease.