If he acts, if he doesn't, it's meaningless. The whole thing goes forward. No one is important. No one at all.

Sunday was always the best of days for being the self you had intended to be, but were not, for one reason or another.

Americans are genuinely and profoundly anti-intellectual. They are especially so in their pleasure-seeking, which is epically banal.

I don't start with an idea or concept in the sense that I flesh out an idea or concept and set it at the center of something.

Much of my work has been done in first person.

The old man began to sing. His voice was very lovely and obviously a part of something that the world had disposed of in its haste, evidence of a grander, kinder past.

As far as ideas about book design: I have plenty. But I also try and let people do their jobs.