Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.

Our only political party has two right wings, one called Republican, the other Democratic. But Henry Adams figured all that out back in the 1890s. "We have a single system," he wrote, and "in that system the only question is the price at which the proletariat is to be bought and sold, the bread and circuses."

The American vice is explanation.

I was born a writer. When that happens, you have no choice in the matter.

We've had parallel lives. And frankly, I prefer mine to his. I would not like to be George Bush.

If you're a critic of the rulers of the United States, you are either demonized, or you are trivialized by the press, and they do a very good job of making you into a non-person or a ridiculous person.

I’m exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.