Very few people can write in a crowd. This is a very solitary occupation. I have known people more talented than me who never made it. And the primary reason was always that they couldn't stand to be alone for several hours a day. Any writer worth anything has mastered the art. The art of solitude.

Every individual has to assume responsibility for his or her own actions, even the poor and the young. A social system that decrees otherwise is inviting intellectual atrophy and spiritual stagnation.

Most Americans pay lip service to the idea of freedom, but can't handle real freedom.

Our world isn't made of earth, air and water or even molecules and atoms; our world is made of language.

Louisiana in September was like an obscene phone call from nature. The air - moist, sultry, secretive, and far from fresh - felt as if it were being exhaled into one's face. Sometimes it even sounded like heavy breathing.

Christians, and some Jews, claim we're in the "end times," but they've been saying this off and on for more than two thousand years.

When I sit down to write, I just let the goose out of the bottle.