I think that if the novel's task is to describe where we find ourselves and how we live now, the novelist must take a good, hard look at the most central facts of contemporary life - technology and science.

The oldest principle of composition: repeat everything.

The web: yet another total disorientation that becomes status quo without anyone realizing it.

If you're going to immerse yourself in a project for three years, why not stake out a chunk of the world that is completely alien to you and go traveling?

Only white men have the luxury of ignoring race.

The thing that makes reading and writing suspect in the eyes of the market economy is that it's not corrupted.

Music forecasts the past, recalls the future. Now and then the difference falls away, and in one simple gift of circling sound, the ear solves the scrambled cryptogram. One abiding rhythm, present and always, and you're free. But a few measures more, and the cloak of time closes back around you.