I suppose that one is always tempted to challenge those who think that they and they alone possess the truth or the way or the key to the mystery.

American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.

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

By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over.

I spend most of my time in California. I feel I am fueled by rage and by the political climate there. I am angry most of the time when I am there, which might be unbearable for someone else, but for me it's fuel for my writing.

They are longing for a war with Iran. Iran is no more a harm to us than was Iraq or Afghanistan. They invented an enemy, they tell lies, lies, lies. The New York Times goes along with their lies, lies, lies. And they don't stop. When the public that's lied to 30 times a day it's apt to believe the lies, is not it?

I do not admire 'the people,' as such. No one really does. Their folk wisdom is usually false, their instincts predatory. Even their sense of survival - so highly developed in the individual - goes berserk in the mass. A crowd is a fool.