It is possible to be homesick for a place even when you are there.

America can be saved only by what it's trying to destroy.

The figure of the gunman in the window was inextricable from the victim and his history. This sustained Oswald in his cell. It gave him what he needed to live. The more time he spent in a cell, the stronger he would get. Everybody knew who he was now.

Only a catastrophe gets our attention. We want them, we depend on them. As long as they happen somewhere else.

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.

Everything's a scandal. Dying's a scandal. But we all do it.

If you know you're worth nothing, only a gamble with death can gratify your vanity.