We need time to lose interest in things.

The question of dying becomes a wise reminder. It cures us of our innocence of the future.

To be a tourist is to escape accountability. Errors and failings don't cling to you the way they do back home. You're able to drift across continents and languages, suspending the operation of sound thought. Tourism is the march of stupidity.

Not long ago, a novelist could believe he could have an effect on our consciousness of terror. Today, the men who shape and inflence human consciousness are the terrorists.

He'd once told me that the art of getting ahead in New York was based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way. The air was full of rage and complaint. People had no tolerance for your particular hardship unless you knew how to entertain them with it.

Just because it's on the radio doesn't mean we have to suspend belief in the evidence of our senses.

It's healthier to reject certain cautions than fall in line.