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.~

Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.

The most interesting thing about writing is the way that it obliterates time. Three hours seem like three minutes.

Between Malraux, Balzac, and Montaigne, I choose Montaigne. Montaigne will survive all the others, because the essay, meaning direct communication between the writer and his reader, will outlast the novel, by at least a thousand years.

There are a great many people who have a vested interest in maintaining the stupidity of the American public.

I believe there's something very salutary in, say, beating up a gay-bashing policeman. Preferably one fights through the courts, through the laws, through education, but if at a neighborhood level violence is necessary, I'm all for violence. It's the only thing Americans understand.

I write in different styles because I hear different voices in my head. It would be boring to have always the same voice, point of view.