Do I know what people say? Sure. I shrug it off. what else can you do? Stop people from talking? You might as well try to stop the wind from blowing.

A successful novel should interrupt the reader’s life, make him or her miss appointments, skip meals, forget to walk the dog.

Rationalism is the idea that we can ever understand anything about the state of being. It's a deathtrip. It always has been. . . . And if rationalism is a deathtrip, then irrationalism might very well be a lifetrip . . . at least until it proves otherwise.

For every mother who ever cursed God for her child dead in the road, for every father who ever cursed the man who sent him away from the factory with no job, for every child who was ever born to pain and asked why, this is the answer. Our lives are like these things I build. Sometimes they fall down for a reason, sometimes they fall down for no reason at all.

Sometimes when you're young, you have moments of such happiness, you think you're living on someplace magical, like Atlantis must have been. Then we grow up and our hearts break into two.

Writers remember everything...especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar. Art consists of the persistence of memory.

Hurt's a reason to change, but all the hurt in the world don't change facts.