Books are funny little portable pieces of thought.

War is elective. It is not an inevitable state of affairs. War is not the weather.

Pornography is a theatre of types, never of individuals.

Intelligence is not necessarily a good thing, something to value or cultivate. It's more like a fifth wheel - necessary or desirable when things break down. When things go well, it's better to be stupid ... Stupidity is as much a value as intelligence.

Cancer patients are lied to, not just because the disease is (or is thought to be) a death sentence, but because it is felt to be obscene - in the original meaning of that word: ill-omened, abominable, repugnant to the senses.

Along with people who pretty themselves for the camera, the unattractive and the disaffected have been assigned their beauty.

I don't write easily or rapidly. My first draft usually has only a few elements worth keeping. I have to find what those are and build from them and throw out what doesn't work, or what simply is not alive.