Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just aspirin.

I never reread a text until I have finished the first draft. Otherwise it's too discouraging.

I am glad my life is coming to an end. To think that it might last another five hundred years, now that would be terrible, in my case.

If you want to rise in politics in the United States, there is one subject you must stay away from, and that is politics.

My family helped start [this country], we've been in political life ... since the 1690s, and I have a very possessive sense about this country.

Teaching has ruined more American novelists than drink.

The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes.