Everyone who does not live in Berlin lives in Brooklyn now.

A novel determines its own size and shape and I've never tried to stretch an idea beyond the frame and structure it seemed to require.

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.

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

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

Some people are larger than life. Hitler is larger than death.

I marched and I protested against the war in Vietnam, along with many, many thousands of others. But I never quite understood the bombs that were placed in science labs or office buildings.