Writers, some of us, may tend to see things before other people do, things that are right there but aren't noticed in the way that a writer might notice.

Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us.

Plot a murder, you're saying. But every plot is a murder in effect. To plot is to die, whether we know it or not.

I'm very concerned with questions of language. This is what I think of when I think of myself as a writer: I'm someone who writes sentences and paragraphs. I think of the sentence - not only what it shares but, in a sense, what it looks like. I like to match words not only in a way that convey a meaning, possibly an indirect meaning, but even at times words that have a kind of visual correspondence.

I marched and I protested against the war in Vietnam, along with many, many thousands of others. But I never quite understood the bombs that were placed in science labs or office buildings.

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.

I think if you maintain a force in the world that comes into people's sleep, you are exercising a meaningful power.