Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer learns how to know it when he finally gets there. On one level this truth is the swing of the sentence, the beat and poise, but down deeper it's the integrity of the writer as he matches with the language. I've always seen myself in sentences. I begin to recognize myself, word by word, as I work through a sentence. The language of my books has shaped me as a man. There's a moral force in a sentence when it comes out right. It speaks the writer's will to live.

There are times when you want to stop working at faith and just be washed in a blowing wind that tells you everything.

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

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

I've always seen myself in sentences. I begin to recognize myself, word by word, as I work through a sentence.

They passed out of the shade beneath the eaves and flew into sunglare and silence and it was an action she only partly saw, elusive and mutely beautiful, the birds so sunstruck they were consumed by light, disembodied, turned into something sheer and fleet and scatter-bright.

All human existence is a trick of light.