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

Lovers, children, heroes, none of them do we fantasize as extravagantly as we fantasize our parents.

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

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

Oh, save me God, but not quite yet.

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.

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