Mine [parents] started out more from scratch, because I'm constantly aware of what they suffered in the war.

One learns much more by writing fiction, because the insights come from those deeper subconscious levels where the greater and more interesting truths lie.

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

Why are there no great women artists?' sounds as ignorant of human geography as the query 'Why are there no Eskimo tennis teams?

As to why people like Joseph Lelyveld are writing memoirs, I think they're just catching on the coattails of the trend.

Americans and their desire to be novelists, the American novel should be listed in medical dictionaries alongside Megalomania and Obsessional Neuroses.

how the French can talk. About a stew, about a fly on the parapet, about death, about anything.