Deep assignments run through all our lives; there are no coincidences.

Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages$$$ or we remain mute.

There's a sucker born every minute.

Yet she felt an impostor$$$ and already the mask had begun to bite into her face.

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

Put a higher value on yourself. Being hyper-realistic about everything is too simple a get-out.

The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images$$$ its dreams$$$ its fantasies. No more. It's over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now: the Kennedy assassination$$$ Watergate$$$ Vietnam...

The media landscape of the present day is a map in search of a territory. A huge volume of sensational and often toxic imagery inundates our minds$$$ much of it fictional in content. How do we make sense of this ceaseless flow of advertising and publicity$$$ news and entertainment$$$ where presidential campaigns and moon voyages are presented in terms indistinguishable from the launch of a new candy bar or deodorant?

My books are my confessions.

We are all our own graveyards$$$ I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy$$$ every day is a celebration$$$ a Day of the Dead$$$ in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived$$$ and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present.