I started reading literature at 17 or 18, and I felt this extra beat to life.

What was our life like? I almost don't remember now. Though I remember it, the space of time it occupied. And I remember it fondly.

There are more people in America that love guns and want guns for themselves and everyone else than there are not. It is also true that liberals who don't want guns are puny by and large. They're not risking anything, all they're doing is saying they don't like something. Liberals are quick to say this should happen and this should not happen, but they don't do anything about it much.

You can't always go to the well and have things be funny.

Fear and hope are alike underneath.

I didn't feel up to writing about 9/11. If I were to write about it, it would take me years.

Marrying the right girl is even more imperative today than it was when I was 23 years old because it's so much harder to get on as an imaginative writer like me now. You need to have somebody who believes in what you're doing and who never is skeptical about what you're doing. My wife thought it was a great thing for me to be a writer because in practical terms it freed her to do what she wanted to do, which was work.