He took a duck in the face at 250 knots.

[The currency of being celebrity] used to be only the elect had any manna in the information society and everyone else was a consumer.

The most common human act that writing a novel resembles is lying. The working novelist lies daily, very complexly, and at great length.

I'm happiest with people who've gotten furthest from traditional ideas of nationalism.

I grew up in southwestern Virginia. I was born in South Carolina, but only because my parents had a vacation cabin or something there on the beach. I was like a summer baby. But I did grow up in the South. I grew up in serious, serious Appalachia, in a very small town.

Generation X is dead. It has come to mean anyone aged 13 to 55 years old.

It's an American thing, but it's particularly a southern thing, and its romanticization is hyper-Southern. And it's still irresistible to me, even in middle age. There's something that pulls me to that, but at the same time, I have this increasing awareness of how banal it really is - that evil is inherently banal.