It's my contention that each book creates its own structure and its own length. I've written three or four slim books. It may be that the next novel is a big one, but I don't know.

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

Freedom is that you harness from being a slave to the one you love.

It's striking that Native Americans evolved no devastating epidemic diseases to give to Europeans in return for the many devastating epidemic diseases that Indians received from the Old World.

You know what I like about summer days? They're just made for doing things... even if it's nothing. Especially if it's nothing.

I just chased bands all over the country. The biggest one I saw was Jimi Hendrix.

A bad workman blames his tools.

I don't have any of the modern stuff. I don't have e-mail. I don't have a computer!

The balance of trade is an article of faith.

I wouldn't say I'm girl-crazy, because that makes me sound like a bit of a womanizer. That isn't really me. But I am quite flirty - maybe too flirty. I'm an 18-year-old boy, and I like to have fun!

I don't appreciate many of the things that are said on social media.

Our loves are not given, but only lent, At compound interest of cent per cent.