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" The compulsively readable events of my life occurred mainly in infancy, and it's been pretty humdrum ever since. "

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" You want, as an artist, to be pushing yourself to do what you haven't done before. "

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

" I'm just kind of fascinated by how we can deny that we are animals and what our impact on the other animals is like, and how quixotic we can be in trying to assess what we've done in trying to correct it. "

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

" I'm enslaved to writing to the point where I sacrifice almost everything else. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" What higher art does is to invite us in and allow us to make decisions. "

" 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. "

" 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 think that's what art is about: to provoke you. It helps me make sense of a senseless universe because I become the god of the story. I create it, and I see it in all its lineaments in my own way and can control it - in a world in which everything else is out of control. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

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

" I love performing in front of an audience. I like the questions; I like controversy. "

" My job is to engage, entertain, work out my life, tell a certain truth. "

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

" 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. "

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

" I never go anywhere without a book for fear of being stuck in line in front of the theater or strapped down in the dentist's chair and being bored witless. Thus, I read everywhere. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" I've always written about heroes and wondered who they are. "

" I hope to stay light on my feet, to work in many modes, to seek inspiration always, and avoid the fatal. But, as we all know, it is the price of life to burn out, both metaphorically and literally. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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