I can walk into a bookstore and hand over my credit card and they don't know who the hell I am. Maybe that says something about bookstore clerks.

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. Sometimes you run over a drunk who's lain down and fallen asleep on the warm pavement. I mean, do you keep going, or what?

The music of the Stones pounds the air like the amplified pulse of my erection.

Whenever citizens are seen routinely as enemies of their own government, writers are rountinely seen to be the most dangerous enemies.

And so do people pass out of one's life and all you can remember of them is their humanity, a poor fitful thing of no dominion, like your own.

Communists have no respect for people, only for positions.

When you're working well, you don't do research. Whatever you need comes to you.