For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.

I like the sound a typewriter makes.

I'm not a man deeply interested in technology. It eludes me.

Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It's a physical experience.

The world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly. We want to feel we are in control of our own existence. In some ways we are, in some ways we're not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence.

It's extremely difficult to get these jobs because you can't get a job on a ship unless you have seaman's paper's, and you can't get seaman's papers unless you have a job on a ship. There had to be a way to break through the circle, and he was the one who arranged it for me.