I earned my stripes as a Marine, and the Corps gets full credit for straightening me out. At 17, I was young, I was unhappy and most of all, I was undisciplined. The Marine Corps was the right service in the right place at the right time.

Writers are funny about reviews: when they get a good one they ignore it-- but when they get a bad review they never forget it. Every writer I know is the same way: you get a hundred good reviews, and one bad, andyou remember only the bad. For years, you go on and fantasize about the reviewer who didn't like your book; you imagine him as a jerk, a wife-beater, a real ogre. And, in the meantime, the reviewer has forgotten all about the whole thing. But, twenty years later, the writer still remembers that one bad review.

New York was the glamorous town that you only see now in old movies and on Broadway stages. The sky was lit up with dancing neon signs. It was safe to walk out in the streets.

I'm working when I'm fighting with my wife. I constantly ask myself-how can I use this stuff to literary advantage.

A bad liver is to a Frenchman what a nervous breakdown is to an American. Everyone has had one and everyone wants to talk about it.

If President Nixon's secretary, Rosemary Woods, had been Moses' secretary, there would only be eight commandments.

This is a wonderful way to celebrate an 80th birthday... I wanted to be 65 again, but they wouldn't let me - Homeland Security.