I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.

When you're my age and you see a story, you better go for it pretty quickly. I'd just like to get a few more novels under my belt.

A good man knows when to sacrifice himself, a bad man survives but loses his soul.

The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.

After all, if you make your enemy look like a fool, you lose the justification for engaging him.

There is no such thing as a secure writer: every novel is an impossible mountain.

Multi-billion-dollar multinational corporations view the exploitation of the world's sick and dying as a sacred duty to their shareholders.