In the desert the most loved waters, like a lover's name, are carried blue in your hands, enter your throat. One swallows absence.

The joyful will stoop with sorrow, and when you have gone to the earth I will let my hair grow long for your sake, I will wander through the wilderness in the skin of a lion

The last three books are much more a case of a moment of history, what happened almost by accident or coincidence, like being in the same elevator or lifeboat.

Do you understand the sadness of geography?

What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power.

Once I've discovered the story, I might restructure it, maybe move things around, set up a clue that something is going to happen later, but that happens much later in an editorial capacity.

Water is the exile, carried back in cans and flasks, the ghost between your hands and your mouth.