Love is the terrible secret people are suspected of unless they're married, then one always suspects they don't.

If we don't bear witness as citizens, as people, as individuals, the right that we have had to life is sacrificed. There is a silence, instead of a speaking presence.

The kinds of good friends I have are people who are perfectly willing to have me say I'll see them in six months, and live right next door.

Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.

Morality, like language, is an invented structure for conserving and communicating order. And morality is learned, like language, by mimicking and remembering.

casino owners spoke more loudly than any of the other kings of industry to defend their contribution to society. They could speak more loudly because theirs was the purest activity of civilized man. They had transcended the need for a product. They could maintain and advance life with machines that made nothing but money.

If the tenth of the population that is gay became visible tomorrow, the panic of the majority of people would inspire repressive legislation of a sort that would shock even the pessimists among us.