Good writing isn’t a science. It’s an art, and the horizon is infinite. You can always get better.

This is so American, man: either make something your God and cosmos and then worship it, or else kill it.

There are very few innocent sentences in writing.

God, what a ghastly enterprise to be in, though-and what an odd way to achieve success. I'm an exhibitionist who wants to hide, but is unsuccessful at hiding; therefore, somehow I succeed.

I felt the sort of soaring, ceilingless tedium that transcends tedium and becomes worry.

We're not keen on the idea of the story sharing its valence with the reader. But the reader's own life "outside" the story changes the story.

Nuclear weapons and TV have simply intensified the consequences of our tendencies, upped the stakes.