I am of course a skeptic about the divinity of Christ and a scorner of the notion that there is a God who cares how we are or what we do.

Do you think Arabs are dumb? They gave us our numbers. Try doing long division with Roman numerals.

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

His response was to fight it with the only weapons at hand—passive resistance and open displays of contempt.

Because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs. So people pretend there is drama where there is none.

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.

The artist makes his living by pretending, by putting it in a meaningful hole though no such holes exist.