What we are is seldom what we want to be, while what we want to be is either denied us or changes with the seasons.

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

Populists have never had a good press in Freedom's land.

If satire is to be effective, the audience must be aware of the thing satirized.

I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the afternoon, but I cannot understand the love affair.

Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. What he takes in he takes in normally the way any person takes in experience. But it is what is done with it in his mind, if he is a real writer, that makes his art.

I don't want anything. I don't want a job. I don't want to be respectable. I don't want prizes. I turned down the National Institute of Arts and Letters when I was elected to it in 1976 on the grounds that I already belonged to the Diners Club.