I believe novels can have secrets from their author, a notion I imagine would appall Nabokov.

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.

I am a bed of sparks you breathe upon and kindle

It may be a movement towards becoming like little children to admit that we are generally nothing else.

Perhaps I am just a coward who loves to laugh at life better than I do cry with it. But when I do get to crying, boy, I can roll a mean tear.

Thanks to my art, I now know who I am.

Is not living at all not better than living badly?

It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.

My mom makes the best Cajun stuff. I'm a big gumbo guy. I've lost a lot of my Louisiana accent, so now when I say 'gumbo,' I feel like someone who's never said the word before.

It's all about putting the best team together - not just in the front office but the players on the field.

The two most fundamental strategic choices are deciding where to play and how to win.

You have to remember once in a while that you can actually stop working and appreciate things.