Not much touches us, but we long to be touched. We lie awake at night willing the darkness to part and show us a vision.

It is not possible to control the outside of yourself until you have mastered your breathing space. It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance you wish to change.

I don't want to conquer you; I just want to climb you.

That is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place.

When it is time to get to work, I go away completely and don't do anything except the work. And that can be 16 hours a day.

Quest is at the heart of what I do-the holy grail, and the terror that you'll never find it, seemed a perfect metaphor for life.

For fate may hang on any moment and at any moment be changed.