Everything can change at any moment, suddenly and forever.

I can never say 'why' about anything I do. I suppose I can say 'how' and 'when' and 'what.' But 'why' is impenetrable to me.

Some things get written more quickly than others, but I can't really measure degrees of difficulty.

In the good mystery there is nothing wasted, no sentence, no word that is not significant.

Chance is an element of life. What I try to do is study what I call the mechanics of reality as carefully as I can.

I know that what's happened in the election has changed American reality, and I understand that I have to change with it. I have to rethink how I live my life. I'm not a political essayist; I don't see that I would have any value cranking out articles for newspapers or magazines, because lots of people are doing that already.

This is very rare for anyone in life to pursue something and that thing being the thing you actually most want to do. It's all about the inner, rather than the outer. Whether people like or don't like my work, read it or don't read it, it's just been a gift from the gods that I've been able to sit at my desk for the last almost 50 years and do the things I've wanted to do.