You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.

I assume that the point of American democracy is you can express any point of view you want.

Before the cards that one is dealt by life are the cards that fate has dealt: one's family.

For true happiness, it is not enough to be successful oneself . . . one's friends must fail.

The brain that doesn't feed itself, eats itself.

Where there is no desire or pursuits, there is no wholeness. But there are satisfying lesser states, fragments.

The United States is my subject, but as Hawthorne once wrote, "the United States are suited for many admirable purposes, but not to live in."