I wanted to be a politician and a movie star. But I was born a writer. If you're born that, you can't change it. You're going to do it whether you want to or not.~

At a certain age, you have to live near good medical care — if, that is, you're going to continue. You always have the option of not continuing, which, I fear, is sometimes nobler.

Now you have people in Washington who have no interest in the country at all. They're interested in their companies, their corporations grabbing Caspian oil.

It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.

A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is ability to articulate human relationships.

Freud did some serious damage to American literature - a lot of writers began therapy in the 1940s, after which they all became terribly egocentric.

The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.