If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.

All I can say is what you already know: some days are treasure. Not many, but I think in almost every life there are a few. That was one of mine, and when I'm blue -- when life comes down on me and everything looks tawdry and cheap, the way Joyland Avenue did on a rainy day -- I go back to it, if only to remind myself that life isn't always a butcher's game. Sometimes the prizes are real. Sometimes they are precious.

Somebody said the prospect of eminent death has a wonderful clarifying effect on the mind. And I don't know if that's true, but I do think it probably causes some changes, some evolution in the way a person works. But on a day-by-day basis, I just still enjoy doing what I'm doing.

The things a man sees when he ain't got a gun.--Watson the Caretaker

In the year 2025, the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives. . . .

But now the joy is gone and the sadness is back, the sadness feels like something deserved, the price of some not-quite-forgotten betrayal.

I've killed enough of the world's trees.