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

The irreversibility of time. That's the hardest thing to accept at our age, that's the most violent aspect of death.

Like most writers I know, I love being on stage. I’ve sublimated the dramatic urge by teaching and by making people laugh.

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

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.

If I were ever to go mad it would be on Thanksgiving Day, that day of guilt and grace when the family hangs upon you like an ax over a sacrificial victim, like the oven's heat on that poor bird.

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