Ignorance is a self-generating state of mind; one of its characteristics is that it doesn't recognize itself as ignorance.

it still astounds me, after forty years, that there is no good bread between Chicago and San Francisco.

There are five things that societies do: They reproduce; they produce food; they organize themselves in terms of law; they organize themselves in terms of belief; and they make art. Four of them are about conformity, and in these, everything would go more smoothly if people just would shut up and do what they're told. But in art it doesn't work that way.

'Ape House' is an ambitious novel in several ways, for which it is to be admired, and it is certainly an easy read, but because Gruen is not quite prepared for the philosophical implications of her subject, it is not as deeply involving emotionally or as interesting thematically as it could be.

Before I write a novel, images float around in my head that work like icons - they are meaningless in themselves, but serve as reminders.

a bookstore is one of the few places where all the cantankerous, conflicting, alluring voices of the world co-exist in peace and order and the avid reader is as free as a person can possibly be, because she is free to choose among them.

everything is toxic. That's the point. You can't avoid toxins. Thinking you can is just another symptom of the toxic overload stage.