We make a mistake to condescend to the past as if it were preparatory to our own time.

Things that appear on the front page of the newspaper as 'fact' are far more dangerous than the games played by a novelist, and can lead to wars.

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.

It may be that the most avid readers of new fiction in America today are film producers, an indication of the trouble were in.

I have committed many sins in my life. This precise sin-the sin against poets-is without absolution.

Leo Crowley, Harry [Truman]'s Foreign Economic Administrator, tells Congressmen the theory...: 'If you create good governments in foreign countries, automatically you will have better markets for ourselves.' With that honeycunt staring you in the face, you'd forget your grammar too.

I've known several cases of writers who decide to write about something and they research the hell out of it and when they're ready to write, they can't move because they are so burdened. I start writing. Whatever I need somehow comes to hand.