We Permit Bad Taste In This Country.

Owen Meany Believed That “coincidence” Was A Stupid, Shallow Refuge Sought By Stupid, Shallow People Who Were Unable To Accept The Fact That Their Lives Were Shaped By A Terrifying And Awesome Design – More Powerful And Unstoppable Than The Yankee Flyer. (a Train)

The History Of A City Was Like The History Of A Family—there Is Closeness And Even Affection, But Death Eventually Separates Everyone From Each Other. It Is Only The Vividness Of Memory That Keeps The Dead Alive Forever; A Writer’s Job Is To Imagine Everything So Personally That The Fiction Is As Vivid As Our Personal Memories.

What Do Americans Know About Morality? They Don't Want Their Presidents To Have Penises But They Don't Mind If Their Presidents Covertly Arrange To Support The Nicaraguan Rebel Forces After Congress Has Restricted Such Aid; They Don't Want Their Presidents To Deceive Their Wives But They Don't Mind If Their Presidents Deceive Congress- Lie To The People And Violate The People's Constitution!

He Wished He Could Arrange A Maiming As A Kind Of Moral Lesson

The Characters In My Novels, From The Very First One, Are Always On Some Quixotic Effort Of Attempting To Control Something That Is Uncontrollable - Some Element Of The World That Is Essentially Random And Out Of Control.