I should add that I very much enjoy certain cities especially Paris, New York and Chicago.

There is a neurologist, a woman over at Harvard who wanted me to come talk to them, and in France I have a lot of readers in the sciences. I can't tell you why.

I like grit, I like love and death, I'm tired of irony. ... A lot of good fiction is sentimental. ... The novelist who refuses sentiment refuses the full spectrum of human behavior, and then he just dries up. ... I would rather give full vent to all human loves and disappointments, and take a chance on being corny, than die a smartass.

I can write anywhere.

I seek the substantial in life.

I'm not rational enough to be a good journalist.

Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends.