In searching for a way out of my own troubles, I had found my way into the troubles of others, some long gone, and now I was trying to find my way back out, through their troubles, as if we human beings can ever learn from one another.

A beginning idea for a book might be: a boy emerges from a hole in the ground. He enters a house. The book will take place in the first ten minutes following his arrival.

We tire differently if we love or love not.

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

I'm confused, and brilliant books help me to be less so.

I'm an elephant today. I will need to have lots of room and also a bowl of water on the floor.

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