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

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.

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

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

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.

I'd say writing is easier for me now than it once was, but I do less of it.

Clarity is the most important thing to me - in thinking - and so I try in the books to be as clear as possible.