To hear two American men congratulating each other on being heterosexual is one of the most chilling experiences - and unique to the United States. You don't hear two Italians sitting around complimenting each other because they actually like to go to bed with women. The American is hysterical about his manhood.

Class is the most difficult subject for American writers to deal with as it is the most difficult for the English to avoid.

God, or what have you, will not be found at the far end of a syllogism, no matter how brilliantly phrased or conceived.

Between Malraux, Balzac, and Montaigne, I choose Montaigne. Montaigne will survive all the others, because the essay, meaning direct communication between the writer and his reader, will outlast the novel, by at least a thousand years.

You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.

It is ironic that a nation that has never experienced a coup d'etat should be so obsessed with the idea of conspiracy.

Novels, except as aids to masturbation, play no part in contemporary life.