Vitriolic is a needless and malign attack on something, excessive attack on something. It is a rather pointless thing to do.

Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust at galaxy's edge, all the more reason for us to maintain in proper balance what we have here. Because there is nothing else. Nothing. This is it. And quite enough, all in all.

On 16 September 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.

In writing and politicking, it's best not to think about it, just do it.

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

Where there is no desire or pursuits, there is no wholeness. But there are satisfying lesser states, fragments.

[Norman Mailer] is against masturbation, he's against homosexuality. He believes that murder is essentially sexual. I think he's rather an anthology of all the darkest American traits.