You need to know things the others don't know. It's what no one knows about you that allows you to know yourself.

The smoke alarm went off in the hallway upstairs, either to let us know the battery had just died or because the house was on fire.

I never wanted to change the world. Norman Mailer wanted to, he set himself the task of changing the consciousness of our age. And I think he came pretty close, in the 1960s, to actually managing to do it. But me? No, no, I never wanted anything like that. I'm not Maileresque.

We surrounded ourselves with smoke and loud noise. That's the way we chose to live. I'm prepared to defend it.

That's what in theory differentiates a writer from everyone else. You see and hear more clearly.

If you reveal everything, bare every feeling, ask for understanding, you lose something crucial to your sense of yourself. You need to know things that others don't know. It's what no one knows about you that allows you to know yourself.

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.