Great art is never perfect; perfect art is never great.

The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial. ... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.

Belief in God? An afterlife? I believe in rock: this apodictic rock beneath my feet.

My books always make the best-seller lists in Wolf Hole, Arizona, and Hanksville, Utah.

Most new books drop immediately into the oblivion they so richly deserve.

To die alone, on rock under sun at the brink of the unknown, like a wolf, like a great bird, seems to me very good fortune indeed.

I have been a lucky man. But someone has to be.