The true confessors have been aware that not only is life mostly failure, but that in one's failure or pettiness or wrongness exists the living drama of the self.

The war against terror is like a war against dandruff. It's a metaphor. It's not about anything.

I'm not for real revolutions, because they always bring you the opposite of what you want. You very seldom get what you want if you have a violent revolution.

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

To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.

People like to re-invent you, according to cliché. There are a lot of stores about me that really apply only to Capote or Mailer or somebody else. Everything is a mish mash.

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.