The narrative was too constricted; it was like a fetus strangling on its own umbilical cord.

Violence is the way stupid people try to level the playing field.

The world is divided up into two kinds of people - those who look at their body waste in the toilet bowl, and those who don't.

Novels do take charge of the writer, and the writer is basically a kind of sheepdog just trying to keep things on track.

There are two types of people ... the scrutinizers and the scrutinized

The narrative was too constricted; it was like a fetus strangling on its own umbilical cord.

New York is at once cosmopolitan and parochial, a compendium of sentimental certainties. It is in fact the most sentimental of the world's great cities - in its self-congratulation a kind of San Francisco of the East.