Dead people belong to the live people who claim them most obsessively.

I like to be alone so I can write. But focus can hurt you. I don't want to be some stress casualty in early middle age.

I don't think I will write anything that could be even remotely considered a genre novel from this point on. I think I've graduated.

Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.

[Raymond] Chandler, I reread him, and there's a lot of bad writing there. I don't think he knew much about people.

Sometimes I'll leave the house and go to a delicatessen down the street from me - it's been there a million years - just because I can look at people.

Classical music fulfills for me the function of narrative. I spend 90 minutes a day listening to symphonic music - Beethoven to Bartók - some chamber pieces, and that's my enrichment.