Plato says that as one learns to love, the image of any specific beloved can be left behind for knowledge of the Good. - William T. Vollmann

"Once again I choose to quote the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (If somebody were to ask why I believe that organization instead of one that made opposing claims, I suppose I would say: About scientific matters a scientist is more credible than a non-scientist. A large panel of peer-reviewed scientists, expressing a common judgment, with the caveats and qualifications denoting honesty, increases this credibility from the beginning, while I start by distrusting a lobbyist who was paid to say a certain thing. Scientists may be as corruptible as anybody else, but why was it that the regulated community, with all the money at its disposal, found so few individuals in lab coats who would oppose the climate change Cassandras? — To which a true believer could always say: "I don't care about that, Bill. I rest easy. You'll see how wonderful it will be once God steps in.")"

Across the street an addict was mumbling, his words, like Dan Smooth’s, reminiscent of the structure of graphite, which is to say comprised of slender hexagonal plates of atoms which slough off at a touch like the multitudinous crusts of a Turkish pastry.

I just make the best book that I can and try to not worry about audience or if it will sell. The odds are against you, so why abuse your talent for the sake of a chimera? The only real pleasure for me in writing comes from pleasing myself. What readers think is interesting and illuminating (and it may even be correct), but that is nothing compared to the excitement of seeing a world develop. Besides, even though I like most individuals I meet, I have a pretty low opinion of people in general. So if I were to write for people in general, I would have to drastically lower my estimation of the intelligence of my reader. Rather than doing that, I write the way it seems the book has to appear. I don’t think that’s egotistic. There are often things I would like to include in my books — things about me personally and other materials — that I feel I have to leave out because they aren’t relevant to the book. I’m fairly ruthless along those lines, because I try to let nothing come in the way of what’s best for the book. If that means that the book won’t sell or that a publisher won’t buy it, then that’s my problem. I’ll suffer for that, but I won’t let the book suffer for it.