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

It is at the heart of our human enterprise, that is to say, at the heart of society, to allow consensus a power it ought not to have.

A book can just be a description of a stick being snapped in half. If the reader is brought to feel the plight of the stick, well, you can imagine what that would be like.

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

I have a very basic notion of the structure the book might have - that's mostly it. The rest is luck and happenstance.

I don't read books for pleasure, but in desperation.

I believe my friends think I'm funny. All the books are full of humor. Maybe it is a quiet sort of humor that masquerades as not-much-at-all. It is certainly easy to miss.