Being a writer can be isolating. It's good to be among readers and booksellers.

The danger would be going back, or staying still. The only way out was through. The past was ruins, but the present was still in play.

Being a hero, the man had observed, is largely a matter of knowing one’s cues.

My book group has one rule: no books for adults. We read young adult fiction only.

As a teenager in Brooklyn Quentin had often imagined himself engaged in martial heroics, but after this he knew, as a cold immutable fact, that he would do anything necessary, sacrificing whatever or whomever he had to, to avoid risking exposure to physical violence. Shame never came into it. He embraced his new identity as a coward. He would run in the other direction. He would lie down and cry and put his arms over his head or play dead. It didn't matter what he had to do, he would do it and be glad.

We have lived too long. The great days are past.

Until now, I've been a kind of binge-writer - I'll carve out five or six hours on a weekend day and make a large container of espresso and just bang out a lot of words.