Ronald Reagan: a triumph of the embalmer's art.

Writing of history is our only heuristic principle. The Germans have a word for it, einfühlen. It is the ability to experience the past in the present and to recreate it. In my books, I have tried to recreate it in the most natural way possible: History must be integrated into the story without the weight of premonition.

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

Nothing is durable, I think anybody who thinks sex is durable is going to have a lot of grief.

Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an IQ of 60.

Religions sprang up among men to deal with the sometimes terrifying aspects of existence, to make sense out of the senseless, to explain things we find inexplicable.

Many human beings enjoy sexual relations with their own sex; many don't; many respond to both. This plurality is part of our nature and not worth fretting about.