People think about who they are in the stillest hour of the night. I carry this thought, the child's mystery and terror of this thought, I feel this immensity in my soul every second of my life.

Something is always happening, even on the quietest days and deep into the night, if you stand a while and look.

Insanity's so personal. It's hard to know who shares our secrets.

As belief shrinks from the world, it is more necessary than ever that someone believe. Wild-eyed men in caves. Nuns in black. Monks who do not speak. We are left to believe. Fools, children. Those who have abandoned belief must still believe in us. They are sure they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely. Hell is when no one believes.

It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.'

The world is full of abandoned meanings. In the commonplace I find unexpected themes and intensities.

True terror is a language and a vision. There is a deep narrative structure to terrorist acts, and they infiltrate and alter consciousness in ways that writers used to aspire to.