It seems to me the book has not just aesthetic values - the charming little clothy box of the thing, the smell of the glue, even the print, which has its own beauty. But there's something about the sensation of ink on paper that is in some sense a thing, a phenomenon rather than an epiphenomenon. I can't break the association of electric trash with the computer screen. Words on the screen give the sense of being just another passing electronic wriggle.

Being on TV is like being alive, only more so.

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.

I like old men. They can be wonderful bastards because they have nothing to lose. The only people who can be themselves are babies and old bastards.

Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

I know how to choke. Given even a splinter-thin opportunity to let my side down and destroy my own score, I will seize it. Not only does ice water not run through my veins, but what runs there has a boiling point lower than body temperature.

Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and then returning home, wondering why the hell you went.