I often think I can see it in myself and in other young writers, this desperate desire to please coupled with a kind of hostility to the reader.

In this country we're unprecedentedly safe, comfortable, and well fed, with more and better venues for stimulation. And yet if you were asked, 'Is this a happy or unhappy country?' you'd check the 'unhappy' box. We're living in an era of emotional poverty, which is something that serious drug addicts feel most keenly.

Two young salmon are swimming along one day. As they do, they are passed by a wiser, older fish coming the other way. The wiser fish greets the two as he passes, saying, "Morning boys, how's the water?" The other two continue to swim in silence for a little while, until the first one turns to the other and asks, "What the hell is water?"

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

I perhaps could have been somewhat better. One of the interesting things about playing competitive sports as a child is that you confront your own limitations rather starkly at a certain point.

She took a sort of abject pride in her mecilessness toward herself.

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