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

Past, present and future are not amenities of language. Time unfolds into the seamsof being. It passes through you, making and shaping.

It was important for him to believe that he'd spent his life among people who kept missing the point.

My attitudes aren't directed toward characters at all. I don't feel sympathetic toward some characters, unsympathetic toward others. I don't love some characters, feel contempt for others. They have attitudes; I don't.

A dead afternoon in a dark bar was not the worst of fates.

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

It is so much simpler to bury reality than it is to dispose of dreams