Life On A Lifeboat Isn't Much Of

Despair Was A Heavy Blackness That Let No Light In Or Out. It Was A Hell Beyond Expression. I Thank God It Always Passed.

And What Of My Extended Family-birds, Beasts, And Reptiles? They Too Have Drowned. Every Single Thing I Value In Life Has Been Destroyed. And I Am Allowed No Explanation? I Am To Suffer Hell Without Any Account From Heaven? In That Case, What Is The Purpose Of Reason, Richard Parker? Is It No More Than To Shine At Practicalities-the Getting Of Food, Clothing And Shelter? Why Can't Reason Give Greater Answers? Why Can We Throw A Question Further Than We Can Pull In An Answer? Why Such A Vast Net If There's So Little Fish To Catch? (pg. 98)

I Love Canada...it Is A Great Country Much Too Cold For Good Sense, Inhabited By Compassionate, Intelligent People With Bad Hairdos.

I Can't Live For More Than Four Years Outside Of Canada. I'm Canadian, So Ultimately That Is My Reference Point.

I Meet A Number Of People As A Writer Of Fiction Who Say "oh, I Don't Read Much Fiction," As If The History Of The United States, Just As An Example, Isn't An Exercise In Storytelling And Myth-making.