Existence itself does not feel horrible; it feels like an ecstasy, rather, which we have only to be still to experience.

Writing fiction is like music. You have to keep it moving. You can have slow movements but there has to be a sense of momentum, of going someplace. You hear a snatch of Beethoven and it has a sense of momentum that is unmistakably his. That's a nice quality if you can do it in fiction.

A photograph offers us a glimpse into the abyss of time.

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.

History. The more of it you have the more you have to live it. After a little while there gets to be too much of it to memorize and maybe that's when empires start to decline.

I never made a decision in my life that wasn't one hundred per cent selfish.

It is not enough for a story to flow. It has to kind of trickle and glint as it crosses over the stones of the bare facts.