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" I am mad for nature writing. I want to get inside the head of every creature in the world, even ants. "

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" Sometimes if something is entertaining and amusing, people tend to think that it doesn't have the depth of something that's dramatic. I don't think that's true. "

" I read widely - for news, the arts, science, for entertainment, and the value of being informed - and, as a fiction writer, I can't help transposing what I learn into the scenario for a novel or story. "

" Books are up against TV and movies and video games and a multimedia society that is so busy that people don't have contemplative time any more. I worry deeply about this. In fact, I worry about everything all the time. I used to be a punk. All I wanted to do was tear everything down, and that was so much easier. "

" This is why fiction is an art, and life is not - how much more affecting is the lie than the truth. "

" I'm not looking ahead joyfully to the rest of my life or the future of the human race. I've always written about man as an animal species among other animals, competing for limited resources. Our population is exploding. Our environment is dying. Science has debunked God. "

" What is your identity, and how do you know who you are if you don't have language? "

" It's hard to say how certain stories just punch us in the heart and the brain at the same time at the end. I suppose that's what we're all looking for. But each story has its own valence, its own way of saying goodbye to you. "

" I really like the power of stopping the laughter and turning it to horror. "

" I do not want to repeat myself. I want to reach for something I've never attained. This is the excitement of art. "

" It's true that none of my characters are admirable. But maybe I'm primarily a satirist, and a satirist needs to hold up what's not admirable. "

" I think the best endings bring you back in rather than close things off with absolute finality. I'm not saying they necessarily have to be ambiguous, but we don't always need to know what happens when everyone wakes up tomorrow morning. "

" Of course all novelists are egomaniacs and want to draw everyone to their fold just like any other preacher. The snake-oil peddler, the false prophet, all of this is fascinating to me. But I certainly hope that I'm more humane than that. "

" I am a worrier. I worry about the state of our country, of the world, of our species. Every day seems to deliver a new nail to hammer into our collective coffin. "

" This is the beauty of fiction. We may not like these characters, but we inhabit them. "

" I don't care if the audience is 600 Saul Bellows; I'm going to knock them dead with a comedy routine. I'm out there as a missionary for literature because, if people laugh and enjoy themselves, they might actually do something as bizarre as reading the book. "

" Life is tragic and absurd, and none of it has any purpose at all. "

" The novel is a seduction; a reader has to be seduced. "

" I can't fathom writers married to writers and musicians married to musicians. There's your enemy in bed beside you. "

" As humans, we all want our own island. Of course, the truth is, we're never going to get it. "

" Art saved me. It may sound corny, but it's true. "

" Every story is organic, and every story finds its own ending. "

" I think the way to be a writer is to experience things, certainly, and be open to things, but at some point to become dedicated to the craft of writing and to create a stable environment for that writing to occur in. "

" The beauty of American law is you cannot slander anybody who is dead. This is not true in all countries. "

" Look at Sam Beckett. Most depressed man who ever lived, but he sure was funny. "

" I describe myself as an environmentalist not because I'm marching in the street with placards but because I like to be in the woods by myself. "

" I can't read novels while I'm writing a novel, because somebody's voice creeps in. "

" In previous generations, there was purpose; you had to die, but there was God, and literature and culture would go on. Now, there is no God, and our species is imminently doomed, so there is no purpose. We get up, raise families, have bank accounts, fix our teeth and everything else. But really, there is utterly no purpose except to be alive. "

" I like to live in my own mind, regardless of everyone and everything, working out the intimate puzzles that are my stories and novels. "

" It's just my natural way - to be funny. I don't know why that is. But as I've said, humor is a quick cover for shock, horror, confusion. The critics hate funny writers for the most part. They think funny is not serious, but I think that funny can be even more serious than nonfunny. And it can be more affecting, too. "

" I worry about everything in the world, and it's just too much for anybody to think about, so I have my art as my consolation. "