It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a mess. It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.' The novel had become an incentive to deeper thinking. That's really what writing is—an intense form of thought.

~ Don Delillo

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Time and death: It's the ultimate vision of an artist at the end of everything. It's just what's there. It was not something I planned to do.

~ Don Delillo

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When I work, I'm just translating the world around me in what seems to be straightforward terms. For my readers, this is sometimes a vision that's not familiar. But I'm not trying to manipulate reality. This is just what I see and hear.

~ Don Delillo

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It's my contention that each book creates its own structure and its own length. I've written three or four slim books. It may be that the next novel is a big one, but I don't know.

~ Don Delillo

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Too young for Korea, too old for Vietnam.

~ Don Delillo

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I was too much of a Bronx kid to read Emerson or Hawthorne.

~ Don Delillo

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Doesn't seem quite real. It's not meaningful. I can't quite imagine myself being 73. That's the age my father was! [Laughter.] How can I be his age? It's weird.

~ Don Delillo

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