In Southern Europe, we have, of course, very bad governments.

I’ve always said, ‘I have nothing to say, only to add.’ And it’s with each addition that the writing gets done. The first draft of anything is really just a track.

The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.

Capote I truly loathed. The way you might loathe an animal. A filthy animal that has found its way into the house.

You can only have a war with another country. You can't have a war with bad temper or a war against paranoids.

There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt - until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.

No reform ever came from the bottom, and it was always people who understood how the ruling class worked who turned out to be the reformers.