The pornography of violence of course far exceeds, in volume and general acceptance, sexual pornography, in this Puritan land of ours. Exploiting the apocalypse, selling the holocaust, is a pornography. For the ultimate selling job on ultimate violence one must read those works of fiction issued by our government as manuals of civil defense, in which you learn that there's nothing to be afraid of if you've stockpiled lots of dried fruit.

This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.

People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.

What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?

I have no control over my writing. I have lots of good intentions, but no control. There's a story that wants to be told.

What is the use trying to describe the flowing of a river at any one moment, and then at the next moment, and then at the next, and the next, and the next? You wear out. You say: There is a great river, and it flows through this land, and we have named it History.

If civilization has an opposite, it is war.