My comic sense, although deliberately Americanized, is, in its intent, much closer related to the crazy wisdom of Zen monks and the goofy genius of Taoist masters than it is to, say, the satirical gibes on Saturday Night Live. It has both a literary and a metaphysical function.

Writing a novel is not so much a project as a journey, a voyage, an adventure.

True stability results when presumed order and presumed disorder are balanced. A truly stable system expects the unexpected, is prepared to be disrupted, waits to be transformed.

Consider the silent repose of the sausage as compared to the aggressiveness of bacon.

Most novelists write about twisted lives.

Brilliantly, ecstatically, irrepressibly. This is the way to burn

'Neotenty' is 'remaining young,' and it may be ironic that it is so little known, because human evolution has been dominated by it.