Seriously, the world is changing so quickly that if you had any more than 80 years of change I don't see how you could stand it psychologically.

You could slap his wrist for saying it, but then he said it with his face, and you could spank him for making faces, but then he said it with his eyes, and there were limits to correction-no way, in the end, to penetrate behind the blue irises and eradicate a boy's disgust.

It's just a matter of writing the kind of book I enjoy reading. Something better be happening at the beginning, and then on every page after, or I get irritated.

Integrity's a neutral value. Hyenas have integrity, too. They're pure hyena.

Fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude.

How wrong to have been so negative, how wrong to have been so gloomy, how wrong to have run away from life, how wrong to have said no, again and again, instead of yes.

Once there are good sentences on the page, I can feel a loyalty to them and start following their logic, and take refuge from myself.