Where you are born--what you are born into, the place, the history of the place, how that history mates with your own-- stamps who you are, whatever the pundits of globalisation have to say.

reading is not a passive act. It's a creative act. It's a relationship between the writer and a person the writer will probably never meet. I think it's very wrong to write in a way that leaves no room for the reader to maneuver. I don't want to get in the way. What I'd really like to do is to perform the Indian Rope Trick - go higher and higher and eventually disappear.

The world is surely wide enough to walk without fear.

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

Tell me a story, Pew. What kind of story, child? A story with a happy ending. There’s no such thing in all the world. As a happy ending? As an ending.

One of the problems with watching TV is that you've got a fairly low level of language operating all the time. Quite a small vocabulary and really no conceptual or abstract thinking. That's an issue. If you've got a wide vocabulary, you can learn. The complexities of grammar, in themselves, force you to think about time in a particular way. Force you to widen your outlook on the world.

What I wanted to do was to fasten my index finger and thumb at the bolts of your collar bone, push out, spread the web of my hand until it caught against your throat. You asked me if I wanted to strangle you. No, I wanted to fit you, not just in the obvious ways but in so many indentations.