The book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story and the talent.

Art is the concrete artifact of faith and expectation, the realization of a world that would otherwise be little more than a veil of pointless consciousness stretched over a gulf of mystery.

I know I can do it," Todd Downey said, helping himself to another ear of corn from the steaming bowl. "I'm sure that in time her death will be a mystery, even to me.

The worst thing you can try to do is to steer the story once it gets going. You just kind of follow along and see where it goes. That's the fun.

And if there are no cars or planes, and if no one’s Uncle John is out in the wood lot west of town banging away at a quail or pheasant; if the only sound is the slow beat of your own heart, you can hear another sound, and that is the sound of life winding down to its cyclic close, waiting for the first winter snow to perform last rites.

I am, when you stop to think of it, a member of a fairly select group: the final handful of American novelists who learned to read and write before they learned to eat a daily helping of video bullshit.

The book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story and the talent.