Writing Is A Concentrated Form Of Thinking.

A Novel Determines Its Own Size And Shape And I've Never Tried To Stretch An Idea Beyond The Frame And Structure It Seemed To Require.

The Term Itself--my Life--is A Desperate Overstatement.

In This Century The Writer Has Carried On A Conversation With Madness. We Might Almost Say Of The Twentieth-century Writer That He Aspires To Madness. Some Have Made It, Of Course, And They Hold Special Places In Our Regard. To A Writer, Madness Is A Final Distillation Of Self, A Final Editing Down. It's The Drowning Out Of False Voices.

To Portray America Over The Past Twenty Years Or So, I Would Think Immediately Of Football, Probably The Super Bowl In Its Sumptuous Suggestion Of A National Death Wish.

The World Isn't Going To Be Destroyed, But You Don't Feel Safe Anymore In Your Plane Or Train Or Office Or Auditorium.