How do you know if your child is a writer? Your obstetrician holds his stethoscope to your abdomen and only hears excuses.

Your grandparents did not endure the indignities of a steerage journey to Ellis Island so that you could stand outside a discothèque and beg a wallpaper designer to take you in with him.

modern science was largely conceived of as an answer to the servant problem and ... it is generally practiced by those who lack a flair for conversation.

One of the big mistakes they made in Europe is that the circumstances in which you most frequently read or hear the word "race" or "racism" in Europe applies to Muslims. Which is not a race. It is a religion. You can convert to this. You cannot convert your race. I could become a Muslim. I could not become a Chinese person or a black person. So they constantly use that in Europe.

If you read a lot, nothing is as great as you've imagined. Venice is - Venice is better.

It would also have been helpful to have gone to a Catholic grammar school. The only people who know grammar are those people who went to Catholic grammar school. Those nuns beat it into them.

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.