It's not surprising to see in my own work, looking back, and in the work of some of my peers, an attention to family. It's nice to write a book that does tend toward significance and meaning, and where else are you sure of finding it?

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.

There is, after all, a kind of happiness in unhappiness, if it's the right unhappiness.

The figure of my father looms large in my imagination.

I had a Viking sense of entitlement to whatever provisions I could plunder.

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

Here was a torture that Greek inventors of the Feast and the Stone had omitted from their Hades: the Blanket of Self-Deception. A lovely warm blanket as far as it covered the soul in torment, but it never quite covered everything.