Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society. |
Not really, ... There is no Carl. I made him up. |
Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing. |
So what this is is a 'road novel.' Eventually entire civilization (in the South) had been uprooted and people found security only in movement, ... That interested me enormously ... A friend from New Orleans, he said when he read the book, 'This is like Hurricane Katrina.' |
The thing about this march is it was totally different than the rest of the war, as bloody and brutal and awful as it was. |
The wretched war had destroyed not only their country but all their presumptions of human self-regard. What a scant, foolish pretense was a family, a culture, a place in history, when it was all so easily defamed. And God was behind this. |
The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century. |
There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative. |
We dress them [children] in the presumptions of the world. They are the bright small face of hope. They are the last belief we have, the belief in making them believe. |
We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw and nervy. |
Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake. |
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. |
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. |
Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. |
Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. |