The problem with making a virtual world of oneself is akin to the problem with projecting ourselves onto a cyberworld: there’s no end of virtual spaces in which to seek stimulation, but their very endlessness, the perpetual stimulation without satisfaction, becomes imprisoning.

...She felt that nothing could kill her hope now, nothing. She was seventy-five and she was going to make some changes in her life.

The world was ending then, it's ending still, and I'm happy to belong to it again.

Good novels are produced by people who voluntarily isolate themselves and go deep, and report from the depths on what they find.

I used to think it was hard to write, and I still find the process more or less unpleasant, but if I know what I'm doing it rattles along, then the rewrite whips it into shape rather quickly.

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

He couldn't figure out if she was immensely well adjusted or seriously messed up.