...between human beings there are only two alternatives, either brotherhood or crime. - Saul Bellow

A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life. It tells us that for every human being there is a diversity of existences, that the single existence is itself an illusion in part, that these many existences signify something, tend to something, fulfill something; it promises us meaning, harmony, and even justice.

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.

And what about all the good I have in my heart — doesn’t it mean anything?