If I'm going to feel estranged and alienated and away from home I don't want anyone interrupting it to debate which berries to have in their pancakes.

I don't know exactly how long the book as we know it will exist, but I fully expect to make it to my death without having to give up on books.

The Great Recession is not imaginary, and the effects loom large. There was an article in the NYT about the galloping death rate among white men in middle age. Higher than among any other demographic, etc. Mostly death by drugs, alcohol, or suicide. Many of them rural. My feeling is that it's many people who haven't been able to get back into the work force. Reg Morse is an example of the problem.

I do think that just about whenever I am writing, or more accurately, whenever I have written, I feel better and more at peace as a human being. That doesn't mean, unfortunately, that the literary product is any good.

The past was so past it hurt.

I sort of hate the novel when it doesn't push, restlessly, against the tradition and the traditional.

I turned forty, and Im finally going to get married and maybe have a kid.