I've become more conservative about sex as I've gotten older.

Famous people complain about fame, but they never want to give it back, myself included.

In a bad marriage, friends are the invisible glue. If we have enough friends, we may go on for years, intending to leave, talking about leaving -instead of actually getting up and leaving.

I believe I belong to the last literary generation, the last generation, that is, for whom books are a religion.

What I would like to give my daughter is freedom. And this is something that must be given by example, not by exhortation.

I think that the joy of writing a novel is the self-exploratio n that emerges and also that wonderful feeling of playing God with the characters. When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish. ... I think the most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study.

There is nothing fiercer than a failed artist. The energy remains, but, having no outlet, it implodes in a great black fart of rage which smokes up all the inner windows of the soul. Horrible as successful artists often are, there is nothing crueler or more vain than a failed artist.