President George] Bush talked to us like we were a bunch of morons and we ate it up. Can you imagine, the Pledge of Allegiance, read my lips-can you imagine such crap in this day and age?

To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for a blind, venomous, and ungrateful client.

There is always a chance of failure, of producing something totally unnecessary. But I guess that chance of failure is what makes tightrope walking, race-car driving.

The measure of artistic merit is the length to which a writer is willing to go in following his own compulsions.

I think books should have secrets, like people do.

The inner spaces that a good story lets us enter are the old apartments of religion.

There was clearly great charm and worth in a sport so quaintly perverse in its basic instructions. Hit down to make the ball rise. Swing easy to make it go far. Finish high to make it go straight.