If you would be thrilled by watching the galloping advance of a major glacier, you'd be ecstatic watching changes in publishing.

Being an adult means accepting those situations where no action is possible.

I want story, wit, music, wryness, color, and a sense of reality in what I read, and I try to get it in what I write.

The only thing that prisons demonstrably cure is heterosexuality.

Night and gin and music-the right setting for peeling off the thin clinging layers of bullshit and finding one's way down closer to the essential self.

The dividing line [between friends and acquaintances] is communication, I think. A friend is someone to whom you can say any jackass thing that enters your mind. With acquaintances, you are forever aware of their slightly unreal image of you, and to keep them content, you edit yourself to fit. Many marriages are between acquaintances. You can be with a person for three hours of your life and have a friend. Another will remain an acquaintance for thirty years.

Friendships, like marriages, are dependent on avoiding the unforgivable.