The interesting thing is why we're so desperate for this anesthetic against loneliness.

Keep in mind that a language is both a map of the world and its own world, with its own shadowlands and crevasses - places where statements that seem to obey all the language's rules are nevertheless impossible to deal with.

There are very few innocent sentences in writing.

Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.

My personal belief is that because technology and economic logic has gotten so sophisticated, cruelties can be perpetrated now that would have been unimaginable two or three hundred years ago.

[I]f the writer does his job right, what he basically does is remind the reader of how smart the reader is.

I believe I want adult sanity, which seems to me the only unalloyed form of heroism available today.