[On the writers she admires:] I prefer dead writers, because I don't see them at parties.

The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

I think one manifestation of integrity is holding a grudge. Saying no is a little different. Holding a grudge is the modern equivalent of having standards.

Breakfast cereals that come in the same colors as polyester leisure suits make oversleeping a virtue.

I never wanted to have any extra money, if it meant having to have any extra work.

When I was very little, say five or six, I became aware of the fact that people wrote books. Before that, I thought that God wrote books. I thought a book was a manifestation of nature, like a tree.

Television turned out to be exactly as bad as the most irritating and pedantic intellectuals of the '50s said it was going to be.