I actually went into writing first to supplement my income, which was a strange thing to do and actually failed.

I never thought that it would take me so long to do something. I thought everything was temporary and sometimes the best thing you have working in your favor is a bad sense of time. In order to sit down and write a book that takes six years you have to have a screwed up sense of time because that's too daunting. No one is going to pick up a pen and a piece of paper and say, "Okay, six years, here we go."

Optimism isnt funny unless you are laughing at the person, whereas extreme pessimism is extremely funny. Its exaggeration.

Once a year I try writing a poem, usually because I've read some poetry that amazed me and I want to do that.

He pointed the gun at me. Then he looked up at my hand & tilted his head slightly. - Journey, he said. I had forgotten I was still holding the book. - Céline, I said back in a whisper. - I love that book. - I'm only halfway through. - Have you got to the point where -- - Hey, kill me, but don't tell me the end!

What a nasty act of cruelty, giving a dying man his last wish. Don't you realize he doesn't want it? His real wish is not to die.

… she gave me a look that deftly combined tenderness with revulsion. To this day the memory of that look still visits me like a Jehovah’s Witness: uninvited and tireless.