He realized now that a lot of the problem had been his own mind, which was usually moving at a speed ten or twenty times that of his classmates. They had thought him strange, weird, or even suicidal, depending on the escapade in question, but maybe it had been a simple case of mental overdrive-if anything about being in constant mental overdrive was simple. Anyway, it was the sort of thing you got under control after a while-you got it under control or you found outlets for it.

Paul LePage has become a terrible embarrassment to the state I live in and love. If he won't govern, he should resign.

Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.

I'm not the first person to have said this - no writer ever feels that the execution of a book lives up to the idea for that book. The execution always falls short.

But writers INVITE ghosts, maybe; along with actors and artists, they are the only totally accepted mediums of our society. They make worlds that never were, populate them with people who never existed, and then invite us to join them in their fantasies. And we do it, don't we? Yes. We PAY to do it.

If I have to spend time in purgatory before going to one place or the other, I guess I'll be all right as long as there's a lending library.

He had a massive stroke. He died with his tie on. Do you think that could be our generation's equivalent of that old saying about dying with your boots on?