Altruism is a brief phase through which some adolescents must pass. It is rather like acne. Happily, as with acne, only a few are permanently scarred.

The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge.

I'm a much worse guest than I am a host, and I'm not an awfully good host either. I really like being alone.

In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you're a great writer, you must say that you are.

There was more of a flow to my output of writing in the past, certainly. Having no contemporaries left means you cannot say, "Well, so-and-so will like this," which you do when you're younger. You realize there is no so-and-so anymore. You are your own so-and-so. There is a bleak side to it.

The best novelist of my generation is an Italian living in Paris, still working and improving - Italo Calvino.

Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or woman President everything will be all right. But it won't be.