...and I went into the garden and lay down and looked at the stars in the sky and made myself negligible.

I was born too late for steam trains and a lazy eye meant I'd never be an astronaut.

I don't mean that literary fiction is better than genre fiction, On the contrary; novels can perform two functions and most perform only one.

Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses.

Science and literature give me answers. And they ask me questions I will never be able to answer.

On the fifth day, which was a Sunday, it rained very hard. I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.

There's something with the physical size of America... American writers can write about America and it can still feel like a foreign country.