Only a catastrophe gets our attention. We want them, we depend on them. As long as they happen somewhere else.

Terror is now the world narrative, unquestionably. When those two buildings were struck, and when they collapsed, it was, in effect, an extraordinary blow to consciousness, and it changed everything.

You have to break through the structure of your own stonework habit just to make yourself listen.

Clouds are no deterrent. Clouds intensify the drama, trap and shape the light.

It occurred to me that eating is the only form of professionalism most people ever attain.

It was the time of year, the time of day, for a small insistent sadness to pass into the texture of things. Dusk, silence, iron chill. Something lonely in the bone.

I am not particularly distressed by the state of fiction or the role of the writer. The more marginal, perhaps ultimately the more trenchant and observant and finally necessary he'll become.