There's no such thing as a folk writer. There's no such thing as somebody who's never read a book before suddenly sitting down one day and writing one. You have to learn how to captivate a reader. Right? And I don't mean you have to go to school for it. But if you're - if you pay attention, you can learn it by reading books. And so I feel like I learned a lot by reading books.

I like books on tape, and will listen to just about anything.

Being locked up is one thing, but to have no concept of confinement, to be ignorant of its terms and never understand that struggle is useless - that's what hell must be like.

I hated leaving a hole in the smoking world, and so I recruited someone to take my place. People have given me a lot of grief, but I'm pretty sure that after high school, this girl would have started anyway, especially if she chose the army over community college.

In other parts of the country people tried to stay together for the sake of the children. In New York they tried to work things out for the sake of the apartment.

I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.

Hugh returned from his trip, and days later I still sounded like a Red Chinese asking questions about the democratic hinterlands. "And you actually saw people smoking in restaurants? Really! And offices, too? Oh, tell me again about the ashtrays in the hospital waiting room, and don't leave anything out."