I believe there's something very salutary in, say, beating up a gay-bashing policeman. Preferably one fights through the courts, through the laws, through education, but if at a neighborhood level violence is necessary, I'm all for violence. It's the only thing Americans understand.

Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.

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.

Love is a fan club with only two fans.

Monotheism is easily the greatest disaster to befall the human race.

I like Italy. I was always at home there, it's a marvelous place to become invisible. Nobody bothers you and nobody is interested in you and I find that very good for work.

Writing when you are already very old means you have lived through the endings of so many things, you are more aware of the shape life takes. You begin to know Death, you've been close to it. But youth can barely imagine the end of this journey.