Mao II

"There's a curious knot that binds novelists and terrorists...Years ago I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory. They make raids on human consciousness. What writers used to do before we were all incorporated."

"Stories have no point if they don't absorb our terror."

When a writer doesn't show his face, he becomes a local symptom of God's famous reluctance to appear.

The future belongs to crowds.