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.

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 always try to be alert to the potential for repetition, for a decaying orbit with regard to my use of technique, etc.

It is the nature of the writer to question the validity of his world and yet rely on his senses to describe it. From what other tension can great literature be born?

Imbuing fiction with a life that extends beyond the last word is in some ways the goal: the ending that goes beyond the ending in the reader's mind, so invested are they in the story.

An inordinate love of ritual can be harmful to the soul, unless, of course, in times of great crisis, when ritual can protect the soul from fracture.

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?