Every writer's difficult journey is a movement from silence to speech. We must be intensely private and interior in order to find a voice and a vision - and we must bring our work to an outside world where the market, or public outrage, or even government censorship can destroy our voice.

Live disasters are wonderful attractions when you're safe on the other side of them.

I wish I could remember where I put things. I spend half my life looking for my keys. With the other half I look for my glasses.

I believe in the dull lie - make your story boring enough and no one will question it.

Sometimes I think I'm a one-trick pony because I'm not very inventive about new ways of telling stories.

I cannot find words to express the depth of my loss or outrage about what's happening to this country. I don't know if I can find the words for it, but if this country ever recovers, it will not be in my lifetime. If I were elected President, the first thing I would do would be to set up a Department of Restoring the Bill of Rights. I would have 10,000 people working there.

I had wanted to write Ghost Country for a long time, but it wouldn't work.