There's a curious knot that binds novelists and terrorists...Years ago I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory. They make raids on human consciousness. What writers used to do before we were all incorporated.

It's true that some of us become better writers by living long enough. But this is also how we become worse writers. The trick is to die in between.

Time is a corporate asset now. It belongs to the free market system. The present is harder to find... The future becomes insistent.

There are two categories of writers, it could be said: The author who is just a voice, and the one who is also creating a picture. I belong to the latter, because I have an acute visual sense.

I think literature has lost it's power. Great novels continue to be written, but they are no longer changing the world.

Before pop art, there was such a thing as bad taste. Now there's kitsch, schlock, camp, and porn.

There is no lie in war or preparation of war that can't be defended.