“Given that external realityis a fiction, the writer's roleis almost superfluous. Hedoes not need to invent thefiction because it is alreadythere.”

“Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century. ”

“A lifetime's experience urges me to utter a warning cry: do anything else, take someone's golden retriever for a walk, run away with a saxophone player. Perhaps what's wrong with being a writer is that one can't even say 'good luck'--luck plays no part in the writing of a novel. No happy accidents as with the paint pot or chisel. I don't think you can say anything, really. I've always wanted to juggle and ride a unicycle, but I dare say if I ever asked the advice of an acrobat he would say, 'All you do is get on and start pedaling'.”

“After a heavy snowfall one night in early December the snow formed a thick quilt from which the old man's face emerged like a sleeping child's above an eiderdown. Jim told himself that he never moved because he was warm under the snow.”

“After Freud's exploration within the psyche it is now the outer world of reality which must be quantified and eroticised”

“Perhaps the future belongs to magic, and it's we women who control magic.”

“A car crash harnesses elements of eroticism, aggression, desire, speed, drama, kinesthetic factors, the stylizing of motion, consumer goods, status -- all these in one event. I myself see the car crash as a tremendous sexual event really: a liberation of human and machine libido (if there is such a thing).”