Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will.

A man with a credit card is in hock to his own image of himself.

In the morning I'm often anti-semantic.

Now each one of us, black or white, is a symbol. The war is out in the open and the skin color is a uniform. All the deep and basic similarities of the human condition are forgotten so that we can exaggerate the few differences that exist.

We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody threw the girl off the bridge.

It's no good telling somebody they're trying too hard. It's very much like ordering a child to go stand in a corner for a half hour and never once think about elephants.

I want story, wit, music, wryness, color, and a sense of reality in what I read, and I try to get it in what I write.