I liked the trichotomy, that's the only thing I ever liked.

No one reads novels anymore. And I don't see the situation improving. People prefer video games, reality TV, and films. There are so many reasons now not to read novels.

Can you imagine having a love affair going on and on decade after decade? Macabre.

We're the most captive nation of slaves that ever came along. The moral timidity of the average American is quite noticeable. Everybody's afraid to be thought in any way different from everyone else.

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.

When anyone says to me, 'Can you keep a secret?' I say, 'Why should I, if you can't?'

Astronauts: rotarians in outer space.