The ideal kitchen-sink novel: Throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Then add the kitchen sink.

If you feel that you're not ready to die, never fear; nature will give you complete and adequate assistance when the time comes.

The response to my books from my East Coast friends has been wildly various, running the gamut from 'bad' to 'very bad.' (Is there another gamut?)

Democracy -- rule by the people -- sounds like a fine thing; we should try it sometime in America.

All governments need enemies. How else to justify their existence?

I now find the most marvelous things in the everyday, the ordinary, the common, the simple and tangible.

Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.