The fact is, there's a great deal of hair-splitting fussiness when it comes to fly-fishing, most of it as silly as a top hat.

If you are writing any book about the end of the world, what you are really writing about is what's worth saving about it.

Behind every writer stands a very large bookshelf.

My inventing time is all done under the influence of aerobic exercise. Basically, I do all my thinking while I run.

I grew up during the Cold War, when everything seemed very tenuous. For many years, right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall, I had vivid nightmares of nuclear apocalypse.

We live, we die. Somewhere along the way, if we're lucky, we may find someone to help lighten the load.

This ravishing world. This achingly bittersweet, ravishing world.

I have any number of completely dark obsessions and fascinations, and none of this was present in my profile or my growing profile as a writer.

What strange places our lives can carry us to, what dark passages.

My theory of characterization is basically this: Put some dirt on a hero, and put some sunshine on the villain, one brush stroke of beauty on the villain.

My rule has always been, write the next part of the book that you seem to know well. So I won't necessarily write chapter two after chapter one.

Culture is the intersection of people and life itself. It's how we deal with life, love, death, birth, disappointment... all of that is expressed in culture.

I am such a bloody talented guy. I might go into painting or something like that.

I'm "crushable." That was the craziest thing. They called me "crushable" on some website.

I've read the last page of the Bible. It's all going to turn out all right.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

I'm 5 foot 7, and I've got pasty white skin. I don't think I'm ugly, don't get me wrong, but I'm not your classic lead man, Brad Pitt guy.

I used to believe in the pretty pictures that were all around me, but now I know for sure that I was stupid.

Sometimes too much thinking leads to the Death of Doing

It doesn't matter who's in the box. You go after them and get them out the best way you can.

As we grow up, it feels like you should either invite people into your life or not. There should be fewer and fewer instances of friends you ‘can only take in small doses.’