I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

I'm screaming for help and everybody's acting as if I'm singing Ethel Merman covers.

TV's "real" agenda is to be "liked," because if you like what you're seeing, you'll stay tuned. TV is completely unabashed about this; it's its sole raison.

The integrity of my sleep has been forever compromised, sir.

If you're writing fiction, you're dealing with characters who, themselves, will have heartfelt sentiments but who, themselves, live in this culture right now and thus face all the impediments to sort of dealing with those parts of their lives that, you know, that we did. So it would be not only silly but unrealistic to have a character saying that kind of stuff.

It took years after I’d graduated from Amherst to realize that people were actually far more complicated and interesting than books, that almost everyone else suffered the same secret fears and inadequacies as I, and that feeling alone and inferior was actually the great valent bond between us all. I wish I’d been smart enough to understand that when I was an adolescent.

Perhaps this is what it means to go mad: to be emptied and to be aware of the emptiness.