We write out of revenge against reality, to dream and enter the lives of others.

Only friends will tell you the truths you need to hear to make your life bearable.

I venture that those of us who are most serene when faced with the possibility of nothingness are the ones who've reached furthest to the downward and upward of their beings.

I think we're much more eager to know about our parents than we were in the seventies.

I was just reviewed by Robert Gottlieb, who was my editor at 'The New Yorker,' and he sort of wondered at the fact that I still need to exorcise my parents at my age. I think he makes a basic mistake in thinking that exorcism can ever be total. The exorcism of your parents will still be occurring on your own deathbed.

The choice between starving and being eaten is an exotic one.

I shall never cease to marvel at the way we beg for love and tyranny.