Whenever I publish a book, I feel like a trapper caught by the Iroquois. They're all lined up with Tomahawks, and the idea is to run through with your head down, and everybody gets to take a swing. They hit you in the head, the back, the ass, and the balls.

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.

Memory is the basis of every journey.

There were people who lied for gain, people who lied from pain, people who lied simply because the concept of telling the truth was utterly alien to them . . . and then there were people who lied because they were waiting for it to be time to tell the truth.

Reading a good long novel is in many ways like having a long and satisfying affair

You know what talent is? The curse of expectation. As a kid you have to deal with that, beat it somehow. If you can write, you think God put you on earth to blow Shakespeare away. Or if you can paint, maybe you think--I did--that God put you on earth to blow your father away.

You are the grim, goal-oriented ones who will not believe that the joy is in the journey rather than the destination no matter how many times it has been proven to you.