I say at the very end of "Winter Journal" that I do dream about my father often. I think I have a tremendous compassion for him, which has grown over the years. A certain kind of pity for him also in that he was so unrealised as a human being, so dogged, and so shut-off from people in many ways. You know, I've been writing another book, and it's another non-fiction autobiographical work, kind of a compliment to "Winter Journal", and it's just finished.

I never experiment with anything in my books. Experimentation means you don't know what you're doing.

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.

Just the fact that Hilary Clinton won the popular vote by such a large number gives some validation to the impulse to stand firm. If we don't, I think within a year administration is pretty much going to dismantle American society as we've known it. I'm not sure that we're able to stop it from happening, but I don't think people should just roll over and passively watch it happen.

it's a rare day when she speaks in anything but platitudes--all those exhausted phrases and hand-me-down ideas that cram the dump sites of contemporary wisdom

Something happens, Blue thinks, and then it goes on happening forever. It can never be changed, can never be otherwise.

It's extremely difficult to get these jobs because you can't get a job on a ship unless you have seaman's paper's, and you can't get seaman's papers unless you have a job on a ship. There had to be a way to break through the circle, and he was the one who arranged it for me.