Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states.

Take naps. Often new ideas come together when you are half asleep, but you have to train yourself to remember them.

If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness.

There is something I have noticed about desire, that it opens the eyes and strikes them blind at the same time.

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

Somehow, knowing that Alzheimer's is coming mocks all one's aspirations - to tell stories, to think through certain issues as only a novel can do, to be recognised for one's accomplishments and hard work - in a way that old familiar death does not.

Oh, that sound? I'm in the hot tub, reading a novel.