Most journalists are broken down alcoholics.

If you're a writer, you have to be an egomaniac. You have to just believe in yourself, which is hard work.

Actually, television tells you to take dope. It tells you to destroy the human race really, by first having more consumers and then consuming more poison and then making the whole planet uninhabitable.

There are no manners left in America at all, because all you're doing is kicking the person next to you so that you can consume more, see more, and get more.

I think fame is something that you've achieved in your inner self that becomes known to others outside you. There are really very few famous people in history.

New York establishment isn't really a literary establishment. It's just a collection of broken down old newspaper hacks who pass judgment on books that they have not even read, with assuredness of Jehova.

Feeling is taboo, especially in New York. I read in some little magazine the other day that The New Yorker and The New York Times were sclerotic, meaning, "completely turned to rock." The critics here are that way.