All men are mortal, and therefore all men are losers; our profoundest loyalty goes out to the failed.

In all the green world nothing feels as good as a woman's good nature.

Being able to write becomes a kind of shield, a way of hiding, a way of too instantly transforming pain into honey.

There is the fear that you somehow neglected to say what was really yours to say.

Time is our element, not a mistaken invader.

Basically it's true that my own life has been my chief window for life in America, beginning with my childhood and the conflicts, the struggles, the strains that I felt in my own family.

Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being somebody, to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his over-animation. One can either see or be seen.