Money has lost its narrative quality the way painting did once upon a time. Money is talking to itself.

Men with secrets tend to be drawn to each other, not because they want to share what they know but because they need the company of the like-minded, the fellow afflicted.

A mystery novel localizes the awesome force of the real death outside the book, winds it tightly in a plot.

To be a tourist is to escape accountability.

Some nights I need to be held. Tonight I'm a listener. So nice to lie in rumpled sheets and listen. Cover me with words.

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

Only a catastrophe gets our attention. We want them, we depend on them. As long as they happen somewhere else. This is where California comes in. Mud slides, brush fires, coastal erosion, mass killings, et cetera. We can relax and enjoy these disasters because in our hearts we feel that California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.