Science has done absolutely nothing about noise. The worst design flaw in the human body is that you can't close your ears. The reason you can't close your ears is, if a lion was coming, you had to wake up. Today no lions are coming. Beeping trucks are coming. I read the other day that the guy who invented the beep when trucks go backward, he died. I thought: Of course - he dies, I have to listen to it.

When I'm supposed to be writing I clean my apartment, take my clothes to the laundry, get organized, make lists, do the dishes. I would never do a dish unless I had to write.

I love sleep because it is both pleasant and safe to use.

Presently it appears that people are mainly concerned with being well rested. Those capable of uninterrupted sleep are much admired. Unconsciousness is in great demand. This is the day of the milligram.

People are constantly telling me, whether they are friends who feel sorry for me, because I can't find a place to live, or real estate agents, "You can't afford an apartment the size you need with this many books. Why don't you just put some of your books in storage?" And I always say the same thing: "What if I told you I had four children? Would you say, 'You just can't afford to house four children. Why don't you just put two of them in storage?'" That's how I feel.

Communists all seem to wear small caps, a look I consider better suited to tubes of toothpaste than to people.

I never had a typewriter. I never had any machines.