Maybe there's a whole other universe where a square moon rises in the sky, and the stars laugh in cold voices, and some of the triangles have four sides, and some have five, and some have five raised to the fifth power of sides. In this universe there might grow roses which sing. Everything leads to everything.

What really scares me is Alzheimer's or premature senility, losing that ability to read and enjoy and to write. And you do it, and some days maybe aren't so good, and then some days, you really catch a wave, and it's as good as it ever was.

I can't see the future, but it's grim. The depletion of resources - we're living in this dine-and-dash economy.

That's something that is almost accidental at the beginning of a career, but the more you write, the more trained you are to recognize the little signals.

There is a relationship between humor and fear. Think of all the gags you ever heard that have to do with dismemberment, or something that's horrible in one way or another, even if it's just horrible in the sense that somebody's being embarrassed. What do kids laugh at? Kids laugh if your fly's down. That's hilarious. But for the kid whose fly is down, it's a horrible situation.

The idea that America exists in a culture of violence is bullshit. What America exists in is a culture of Kardashian.

We are going to fight. We are going to be hurt. And in the end, we will stand.