What else she doesn't know: that the man next to her would end up being her husband and the father of her two children, that after two years together he would leave her, her third and final heartbreak, and she would never love again.

She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you'll know loss the rest of your life.

Used to be in the old days, only the pulp writers wrote like machines. Now everybody is expected to be literary John Henrys. So in that context someone like me is an anomaly.

The anti-immigrant logic has basically saturated our world. I'm staying, and I'm fighting.

I know a number of people who - from the comments they make - are going to vote for [Donald] Trump when that curtain closes. But let's keep it real honest here: They are voting for a xenophobic, anti-Latino white supremacist - don't try to pretty it up. This is now the age when people want to be white supremacists, but they don't actually want to be known for it.

[Donald] Trump is taking America's dirty laundry to the center stage. Everything he does, the rest of the country already does really well: victimize immigrants, poor people, women.

In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.