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• Getting even is one great reason for writing. The precise statement of the motive is tricky, but the clearest expression of my unwholesome nature and my mean motives (apart from trying to write well) appears in a line I like in “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country.” The character says, “I want to rise so high that when I shit I won’t miss anybody.” But maybe I say it’s a motive because I like the line. Anyway, my work proceeds almost always from a sense of aggression. And usually I am in my best working mood when I am, on the page, very combative, very hostile. That’s true even when I write to praise, as is often the case.
  • Interview in The Paris Review Issue 70, (Summer 1977)

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• The howling of the wind in the window... Uncle Balt yelling... Several sounds that bombs make... The eerie echoes you sometimes get in caves... They get replayed.
  • Taken from the liner notes of The Mountain Goats' "The Sunset Tree"