Some people are larger than life. Hitler is larger than death.
In my experience, writing a novel tends to create its own structure, its own demands, its own language, its own ending.
Out of some persistent sense of large-scale ruin, we kept inventing hope.
Money has lost its narrative quality the way painting did once upon a time. Money is talking to itself.
That's the world out there, little green apples and infectious disease.
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.