In the end I write the novels I need to write when I need to write them.

When L.A.’s schizophrenia between Dreamland and Utopia was becoming socially manifest, the United States, which was always a place, went to war with America, which was always an idea.

a dream is only a memory of the future

Western music is arguably America's greatest contribution to the 20th century, cultural or otherwise.

If I had it to do all over again . . . I wouldn't change a thing.'. . . the final expression of narcissism, the last gesture of self-congratulation.

By the plain form of my delirium I will blast the obstruction of every form around me into something barely called shadow. I sail. I swim to you. I know the water.

In LA, you think you're making something up, but it's making you up.

To me experimental fiction ultimately is about the experiment and I'm not interested in experiments for their own sake.

Is the humanism intuitive or labored over?, the answer is: Yes. It begins intuitively, it becomes the reason for writing the thing, and then it's to be considered and fine-tuned and even calculated.

While I do believe I become a technically better writer over time, in others ways writing gets harder because inspiration is finite.

For better or worse I'm the writer I am today because of hearing those Dylan records. For better and most certainly not for worse, I'm the person I am today because of hearing Charles.

Take that chance :even though this is hard, you'll get it in a peace.Leave that chance :i know it's easy, but you will always walk in regret

The only possible way to begin a book is to tell oneself that its eventual failure is guaranteed — but survivable.

We shall hurt others less. Isn't it, after all, what you always wanted?

I am both proud and honored to be on the Board of Directors for the Texas Ballet Theater.

I understood the word 'swoon'. It felt that way, like 'sweep' and 'moon' and 'woo', all those words smashed together in one word that stood for that feeling, right then.

If Rosa Parks had taken a poll before she sat down in the bus in Montgomery, she'd still be standing.

The most unhappy and frail creatures are men and yet they are the proudest.

There is only one type of story in the world-your story.

Adjective salad is delicious, with each element contributing its individual and unique flavor; but a puree of adjective soup tastes yecchy.