There are always surprises. Life may be inveterately grim and the surprises disproportionately unpleasant, but it would be hardly worth living if the….

The hardest part is always the middle of anything because at that point, on some unconscious level, you have to figure out what it's about and why yo….

I have an idea and a first line -- and that suggests the rest of it. I have little concept of what I’m going to say, or where it’s going. I have some….

Pleasure, I remind myself, is inseparable from its lawfully wedded mate, pain..

Everything we do is escapism, because we'll all be dead and everything we do is completely meaningless. Why brush your teeth? Why not be in the park ….

I go around with my books so much and I love to perform on stage, to remind everybody that the lights are off, the phones are off, and for this hour,….

I'm sad that there no more mysterious places in the world..

I'm extremely worried. I'm worried about the survival of our species, worried about what we're doing, worried about being Americans, worried about de….

Writing is a channeling of an individual experience; so is reading. That's what's so exciting about this art form - it's interactive..

The reason we love nature is because it's fascinating and we love all the creatures, but if you watch any nature film, there's always a lesson: "the ….

Basically for me a story can be anything. Anything you tell me, anything I read in the newspaper, in any mode. I don't have any restrictions..

I'm always trying to do something different and trying to keep myself amused..

Work ethic and this determination is all part of escaping the depressive side. Of course I'm manic depressive, maybe not to the degree that Exley was….

If I'm doing my job correctly, I'm presenting a scenario for you as the reader to engage with on your own. I mean that's what the best art is suppose….

I've always been a huge fan of theatre and performance. The idea of just the human voice and just this night. Live music is the same. They're doing i….

I always listen to music while I'm working and I always read aloud to my wife. I love to read aloud to an audience because there's a cadence and a be….

Any story has a beginning, middle, and end, of course, but the question is, where do you start it exactly? It's about a guy who is murdered in a fist….

What I'm doing is exploring things. This is why I'm a fiction writer rather than an essayist or a politician or whatever. I just gather material and ….

First you have nothing, and then, astonishingly, after ripping out your brain and your heart and betraying your friends and ex-lovers and dreaming li….

We are animals and we are made in this way and this is how we behave. I'm just kind of fascinated by how we can deny that we are animals and what our….

The professorial dictum has always been to write what you know, but I say write what you don't know and find something out. And it works..