But spending your life concentrating on death is like watching a whole movie and thinking only about the credits that are going to roll at the end. It’s a mistake of emphasis.

The nice thing about a protest song is that it takes the complaint, the fussing, the finger-pointing, and gives it an added component of sociable harmony.

I’ve always thought of myself as shy.

The job of the novel is to be true to the confusion, but not so confusing that you turn the reader off.

I keep thinking I'll enjoy suspense novels, and sometimes I do. I've read about 20 Dick Francis novels.

It's true that I don't rearrange that much in the fiction, but I feel if you change even one name or the order of one event then you have to call it fiction or you get all the credits of non-fiction without paying the price.

In the novel, I can change things and simplify, and make events work towards whatever meanings I'm trying to get at more efficiently.