the separation of church and state grew out of a desire, not so much to protect government from religion, but to protect religion from government.

When you really want to say no, say no. You can't do everything - or at least not well.

Being accused of making money by selling sex in Hollywood, home of the casting couch and the gratuitous nude scene, is so rich with irony that it's a better subject for a comic novel than a column.... On one coast the cops are busting sex workers on Eighth Avenue, dragging them downtown to night court where they pay the fine and go right back to their corner; on another they're charging Heidi Fleiss with pandering in a town in which the verb is an art form.

I can't think of anything to write about except families. They are a metaphor for every other part of society.

With reference to the younger generation..."If the experience of their exhausted, insomniac, dispirited elders makes them decide they'd prefer not to go straight from the classroom to the cubicle to the coffin, it doesn't mean they're lazy. It means they're sane."

I do a lot of mental work before I ever start writing.

We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else's mind.