Reality is something the human race doesn't handle very well.

Ideally, the writer needs no audience other than the few who understand that it is immodest and greedy to want more.

There is hardly an American male of my generation who has not at one time or another tried to master the victory cry of the great ape as it issued from the androgynous chest of Johnny Weissmuller, to the accompaniment of thousands of arms and legs snapping during attempts to swing from tree to tree in the backyards of the Republic.

I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the afternoon, but I cannot understand the love affair.

When anyone says to me, 'Can you keep a secret?' I say, 'Why should I, if you can't?'

I wanted to be a politician and a movie star. But I was born a writer. If you're born that, you can't change it. You're going to do it whether you want to or not.~

Obviously I'm in favor of protecting the rights of everybody: gay, black, women, what have you, American Indians.