If I wasn't a writer, I don't know what I'd be. Probably a marine biologist or something.

I always try to be alert to the potential for repetition, for a decaying orbit with regard to my use of technique, etc.

Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough.

When you think about the complexity of our natural world - plants using quantum mechanics for photosynthesis, for example - a smartphone begins to look like a pretty dumb object.

The map had been the first form of misdirection, for what is a map but a way of emphasizing some things and making other things invisible?

Nothing that lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth.

There's also a lot of gritty Americana type of bands. I actually have a lot of Britpop on my iPod, too.

I also am not particularly risk-averse - I don't mind jumping off a cliff if I trust the people who've told me they'll catch me at the bottom.

Imbuing fiction with a life that extends beyond the last word is in some ways the goal: the ending that goes beyond the ending in the reader's mind, so invested are they in the story.

So many differing opinions and philosophies... are rarely housed under the roof of a single magazine.

Literary influences are harder for me to point to, because mostly it's a mulch of all of my past reading.

Loyalty is smart with patience.

Give me a window and I'll stare out it.

It is only our deeds that reveal who we are.

I can say I have become far more open about what I believe.

We'll probably only consider a handful of individuals. We'll bring up people who can accumulate either innings or at-bats, so we can hopefully gauge where they stand as a prospective Major Leaguer.

Have sufficient food, clothing, and fuel on hand to last at least one year.

Poets wish to profit or to please.

I understand why my male followers like me.

Don't get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one.

There are some women ... in whom conscience is so strongly developed that it leaves little room for anything else.