The map had been the first form of misdirection, for what is a map but a way of emphasizing some things and making other things invisible?

I see music as an aid. It overcomes my internal editor, especially when the music evokes the character or the mood I'm trying to build.

Nothing that lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth.

I’ve got...ways of tricking my brain into getting what I need out of it

Who had the bigger burden? The one who had to watch the other person endure or the one who endured?

Once you realize there's less logic in human institutions than you once thought, you see the narrative potential in just about everything around you. Sometimes, in fact, it seems as if the human world runs on inefficiency and erratic behavior.

I don't believe that climate-change fiction will change the mind of a denier because most of the deniers I've met are basically in a cult situation. It's a faith issue. It's not a rational issue. There's no fact that's going to change their mind. They simply believe in the cult of climate-change denial and it somehow feeds into the rest of the mythos of their own life story.