Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.

I am an atheist (or at best a Unitarian who winds up in church quite a lot).

Literature is the only art in which the audience performs the score.

Let there be nothing harmonious about our children's playthings, lest they grow up expecting peace and order, and be eaten alive.

But anyway, it's obvious through human experience that extended families and tribes are terribly important. We can do without an extended family as human beings about as easily as we can do without vitamins or essential minerals.

Most writers are not quick-witted when they talk. Novelists, in particular, drag themselves around in society like gut-shot bears.

Even as I speak, the very last polar bear may be dying of hunger on account of climate change, on account of us. And I sure miss the polar bears. Their babies are so warm and cuddly and trusting, just like ours.