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.

The city might be savage, stray dogs might share the streets with grimy urchins whose blank eyes reflected the knowledge that they might soon be covered over, blinded forever, by the same two pennies just begged from some gentleman, and no one in the fuming, fulminous boulevards of trade might know who actually ran Ambergris-or, if anyone ran it at all, but, like a renegade clock, it ran on and wound itself heedless, empowered by the insane weight of its own inertia, the weight of its own citizenry.

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

When we wake, it is because something, some event, some pinprick even, disturbs the edges of what we’ve taken as reality.

When they give you things, ask yourself why. When you're grateful to them for giving you the things you should have anyway, ask yourself why.

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

I do believe very much in the idea of unexpected or "convulsive" beauty - beauty in the service of liberty.