Love and freedom are such hideous words. So many cruelties have been done in their name.

(The short story) is a form that has all the power of the novel - some would say more - but none of the self-importance.

Politics' the polite word for antediluvian prejudices, the rags put on by enmity and tribal resentment.

If you do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. If what you are doing is not working, do something else.

I feel these days like a very large flamingo. No matter what way I turn, there is always a very large bill.

The most important thing I would learn in school was that almost everything I would learn in school would be utterly useless. When I was fifteen I knew the principal industries of the Ruhr Valley, the underlying causes of World War One and what Peig Sayers had for her dinner every day...What I wanted to know when I was fifteen was the best way to chat up girls. That is what I still want to know.

Everything is in the way the material is composed.