Here is the alphabet of the pulsing apocalypse that is fatherhood, a book in love with what words, like parents, create: beauty, terror, awe.

To make a beautiful piece means you have really witnessed it and really made decisions about it.

Follow Through is elegant, sure footed, smart—a nest of sticks that won’t stay sticks—a nest of sticks that snowballs—scary and marvelous.

Ideologically, I have a lot of problems with that, especially when people toss around that form of story as realism. What's called "realism" is actually highly formulaic.

You're seeing something that you've seen a thousand times and you just like it. There's nothing wrong with that but it's not a revelation. It's not a surprise. It's comfort.

I don't want to write the thing that I am a consumer of when I'm unconscious. I want to write the thing that makes me contend with the thing that I've been consuming unconsciously.

If you think it's worth writing a book about then that means you suspect that you're not the only one. You suspect that it has something to do with the larger patterns of your culture.

But even then I knew it wasn’t me that saved her life. It wasn’t about me. I was just there while she was maybe going to die and maybe not, and then she just didn’t.

So many words get lost. They leave the mouth and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves.

He threw his hands to his eyes and hissed. Like the hiss of incinerating ashes. 'What is this bright, orange orb in the sky that mocks me with its warmth?

In my youth, it was my good luck to have a few good teachers, men and women, who came into my head and lit a match.

I don't really know Hollywood, and I think that L.A. needs a bit of time to really know the city, because it's such a huge city.

If there's even one thing we can do - even one life we can save - we have an obligation to try

Let us keep a firm grip upon our money, for without it the whole assembly of virtues are but as blades of grass.

My very first professional writing credit was on a movie called The Dunwich Horror, and Roger Corman was the executive producer.

Most people spend their lives on their endeavors, and I get the privilege to have been doing this since I was five. I get to go play and have fun and entertain people.

Whoever possesses the will to suffering within himself has a different attitude towards cruelty: he does not regard it as inherently harmful and bad.

Some write a narrative of wars and feats, Of heroes little known, and call the rant A history.