I will tell you what is my overriding perception of the last twenty years: that we are a civilization careening toward a succession of anticlimaxes – toward an infinity of unsatisfying, and disagreeable endings.

How we love to love things for other people; how we love to have other people love things through our eyes.

If we live long enough, we become caricatures of ourselves.

You think you have a memory; but it has you!

And I find - I'm 63, and my capacity to be by myself and just spend time by myself hasn't diminished any. That's the necessary part of being a writer, you better like being alone.

Imagining something is better than remembering something.

I certainly think Obama is the most hopeful president I've seen in the country since John Kennedy.