We all end up in the same place. Some sonner than others.

And like most middle-aged people who hear the clock ticking in their lives, I had come to resent a waste or theft of my time that was greater than any theft of my goods or money.

Age is a clever thief. It takes a little from you each day, so you're not aware of your loss until it'd irreversible.

We gain no wisdom by imposing our way on others.

And every good artist knows that the gift comes from somewhere else, and it's there for a reason, and that's to make the world a better place.

In the alluvial sweep of the land, I thought I could see the past and the present and the future all at once, as though time were not sequential in nature but took place without a beginning or an end, like a flash of green light rippling outward from the center of creation, not unlike a dream inside the mind of God.

I think the "crime novel" has replaced the sociological novel of the 1930s. I think the progenitor of that tradition is James M. Cain, who in my view is the most neglected writer in American literature.