Some day, my son, you are going to learn that the two greatest joys of being a man are beating the hell out of someone and getting the hell beaten out of you, good night.

The kind of event on a conveyor belt that causes a fire occurs in a variety of industrial environments, not uniquely in coal environments.

Some day, my son, you are going to learn that the two greatest joys of being a man are beating the hell out of someone and getting the hell beaten out of you, good night.

I don't need all that much - I just need to know who my characters are and what kind of jam they're going to get into, and I'll write myself out of their jam.

Tremble, all ye oppressors of the world!

Writers spend three years rearranging 26 letters of the alphabet. It's enough to make you lose your mind day by day

In a given scene I may know nothing more than how it's supposed to end, most of the time not even that. Scenes are improvised. A character does or says something, and with as much spontaneity and schizophrenia as I can muster, another character responds. In this way, everything I write is spontaneous chain reaction and I'm running around playing leapfrog in my brain trying to "be" all my people.