It's an astonishing skill that people can read, and read well. Very few people can read well. For instance, I have to be very careful with irony, saying something while meaning the exact opposite.

The library is full of stories of supposed triumphs which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm.

bergeron's epitaph for the planet, i remember, which he said should be carved in big letters in a wall of the grand canyon for the flying-saucer people to find was this: WE COULD HAVE SAVED IT, BUT WE WERE TOO DOGGONE CHEAP. only he didn't say "doggone.

Cigarettes are a classy way to commit suiside.

If I wrote something that hadn't really happened, and I tried to sell it, I could go to jail. That's fraud!

I am beguiled by your physical beauty, and I am moved by how head-over-heels in love with books you are. And nowhere else have I found such thoughtful and literate reportage on the state of the American soul, as that soul makes itself known in the books we write.

You can only be funny if you have matters of great importance on your mind.