There's really nothing wrong with sentimentality... Nothing I wrote is sentimental.

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.

In a competitive society, the thing people fear the most is love.

I don't think it's like eastern mysticism, which leaves the person whole. It's really another form of cancer, television.

The worse the author, the more he is known.

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.

The world is telling you through The New York Times and The New York Review of Books "You must shut up. You must never appear again. Because you are not relevant to us." So you have to fight their attempt to destroy you, fight to continue feeling.