I am a whore, and I am paid very well for building high-rise buildings.

Power resides where men believe it resides. It's a trick, a shadow on the wall. 

"The fundamental fact about all of us is that we're alive for a while but will die before long. This fact is the real root cause of all our anger and pain."

I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he turn to the novel.