...I'm no longer the scales most lovers are, weighing the deeds and gifts and treasures proffered against those received or stolen from the other, trying always to bring into fatal balance two separate things.

[Norman Mailer] is against masturbation, he's against homosexuality. He believes that murder is essentially sexual. I think he's rather an anthology of all the darkest American traits.

I'm a born - again atheist.

I said, well, it's a very primitive country, the United States, and it's full of superstitions, which come out of a very fundamental religious bias, which is primitive Christianity.

In writing and politicking, it's best not to think about it, just do it.

Somebody has to keep score and I decided I was going to do it. I'm a born score-keeper and I realize, like an umpire, that my decisions may cause distress.

One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.