There's another part of getting older that's just wonderful. Which is you see the way the stories turn out with peoples' lives.

It is not surprising that Venice is known above all for mirrors and glass since Venice is the most narcissistic city in the world, the city that celebrates self-mirroring.

Beware of books. They are more than innocent assemblages of paper and ink and string and glue. If they are any good, they have the spirit of the author within. Authors are rogues and ruffians and easy lays. They are gluttons for sweets and savories. They devour life and always want more. They have sap, spirit, sex. Books are panderers. The Jews are not wrong to worship books. A real book has pheromones and sprouts grass through its cover.

Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.

Though my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.

of all the foolish Fears of Humankind, Fear of the Future is by far the most foolish.

But we should ask the question: Why should a writer be more than a writer? Why should a writer be a guru? Why are we supposed to be psychiatrists? Isn't it enough to write and tell the truth? It's not like telling the truth is common. Writers are the earthworms of society. We aerate the soil. That's enough.