It's only recently that I've come to understand that writers are not marginal to our society, that they, in fact, do all our thinking for us, that we are writing myths and our myths are believed, and that old myths are believed until someone writes a new one.

Just because we think we're so wonderful doesn't mean we really are. We could be really terrible animals and just never admit it because it would hurt so much.

My special situation was that I was the son and grandson of architects. And so I saw building. We were building the city, and that was exciting.

That’s the attractive thing about war,” said Rosewater. “Absolutely everybody gets a little something.

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

It's a nice glass of champagne at the end of a life.

Each one of us has to be what he or she is.