I am an obsessive rewriter, doing one draft and then another and another, usually five. In a way, I have nothing to say, but a great deal to add.

Of course, it is possible for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye, to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only a series of flashing fictions.

That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.

Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.

Most writers are middle-class and are the children of doctors or lawyers.

It is curious how often one prefers his enemies to his friends.

I find in most novels no imagination at all. They seem to think the highest form of the novel is to write about marriage, because that's the most important thing there is for middle-class people.