It wasn't so easy though, ending the war. A war is a huge fire; the ashes from it drift far, and settle slowly.

There are novels that end well, but in between there are human beings acting like human beings. And human beings are not perfect. All of the motives a human being may have, which are mixed, that's the novelists' materials. That's where they have to go. And a lot of that just isn't pretty. We like to think of ourselves as really, really good people. But look in the mirror. Really look. Look at your own mixed motives. And then multiply that.

It is my contention that the process of reading is part of the process of writing, the necessary completion without which writing can hardly be said to exist.

Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

Instead I will say, "Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers; take me to your deaths." These are worth it. These are what I have come for.

Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in?

If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.