You start at the stupid end of the book, and if you're lucky you finish at the smart end.

The Republicans were not always insane. They might've had politics I didn't agree with, but they weren't always actually certifiable.

If a birth is the fall-out from the explosion caused by the union of two unstable elements, then perhaps a half-life is all we can expect.

There is no magic on earth strong enough to wipe out the legacies of one's parents.

I think the business of writing a great deal of it is the business of paying attention to your characters, to the world they live in, to the story you have to tell, but just a kind of deep attention and out of that if you pay attention properly the story will tell you what it needs.

Perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin.

What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy.