Writing has always had a tactile quality for me. It's a physical experience.

One should never underestimate the power of books.

People who don't like my work say that the connections seem too arbitrary. But that's how life is.

I thought I was terrible [to play a cameo] and decided never to act again.

As long as a man had the courage to reject what society told him to do, he could live life on his own terms. To what end? To be free. But free to what end? To read books, to write books, to think.

In the end, each life is no more than the sum of contingent facts, a chronicle of chance intersections, of flukes, of random events that divulge nothing but their own lack of purpose.

I don't have all the facts. And I might misremember. As a matter of fact, after I finished Winter Journal, I realized that I'd gotten someone's name wrong.