Memory inevitably romanticizes, pressing reality to recede like pain.

That is a very good question. I don't know the answer. But can you tell me the name of a classical Greek shoemaker?

The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always.

The American Dream is the largely unacknowledged screen in front of which all American writing plays itself out.

The word "now" is like a bomb through the window, and it ticks.

Pop, I'm nothing! I'm nothing, Pop. Can't you understand that? There's no spite in it any more. I'm just what I am, that's all.

The enemy is within, and within stays within, and we can't get out of within.