It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.

Since there is no system of public education, the great majority of my fellow citizens is frighteningly ignorant. They have no idea where Iraq is. They accept as the gospel whatever the government tells them. Good grief, any other normal country would have been against the Iraq war! But we live in an abnormal country, governed by experts in deceptive advertising.

The New York Times is the worst in that hardly anybody can write English over there. Most of it reads like slight translations from the German.

Nixon was a Southern Rim President, and so antipathetic to the old guard.

I don't think contemporary writers spend a lot of time reading each other. Particularly writers of the same nationality.

To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.

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