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

Sometimes I think with the telephone that if I concentrate enough I could pour myself into it and I'd be turned into a mist and I would rematerialize in the room of the person I'm talking to. Is that too odd for you?

I’ve always thought of myself as shy.

You need the art in order to love the life.

It's troubling to see how often Winston Churchill is a proponent of massive programs that are really aimed at civilians - starvation blockades and chemical warfare stockpiles and so on.

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

I'm suspicious of full-replacement programs - that is, pronouncements that one way of doing something will entirely supplant another, and that in fact we have to hurry the replacement along.