The word 'radical' derives from the Latin word for root. Therefore, if you want to get to the root of anything you must be radical. It is no accident that the word has now been totally demonized.

When you come from a family that has been political, and I was brought up by my grandfather in the Senate, my father was in Roosevelt's Cabinet, this is not the class that produces writers or reflective people.

Truman Capote has made lying an art. A minor art.

The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.

CO₂ emissions anywhere threaten civilisation everywhere.

I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take to pen and paper in the first place

The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.