People always seek to compare. They can take the new, but only if it is somehow connected to the familiar. We need that in our lives, the mix of the new and the old. But of course I'm flattered about the comparison with Old man and the sea. Hemingway is a great writer.

I think art comes from some sense of discomfort with the world, some sense of not quite fitting with it.

What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell.

Was it the forgetfulness of old age or personal incapacity that made the man able to say please but not thank you?

When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.

Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body. It is from there that both babies and cancers are born.

Any writer will be happy and good only if they know what they're doing and why they're doing it.