But I began then to think of time as having a shape, something you could see, like a series of liquid transparencies, one laid on top of another.

A Paradox, the doughnut hole. Empty space, once, but now they've learned to market even that. A minus quantity; nothing, rendered edible. I wondered if they might be used-metaphorically, of course-to demonstrate the existence of God. Does naming a sphere of nothingness transmute it into being?

Whatever the scientists may come up with, writers and artists will continue to portray altered mental states, simply because few aspects of our nature fascinate people so much. The so-called mad person will always represent a possible future for every member of the audience - who knows when such a malady may strike?

I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.

Writing... is an act of faith: I believe it's also an act of hope, the hope that things can get better than they are.

If you want what's in the package you should at least know how to get the string off, is what I say.

The newspaper journalists like to believe the worst; they can sell more papers that way, as one of them told me himself; for even upstanding and respectable people dearly love to read ill of others.