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

[I write] intuitively, reflexively, as if skiing down a steep mountain slope with no time to think.

I have been a writer since 1949. I am self-taught. I have no theories about writing that might help others. When I write, I simply become what I seemingly must become. I am six feet two and weigh nearly two hundred pounds and am badly coordinated, except when I swim. All that borrowed meat does the writing. In the water I am beautiful.

Laughter or crying is what a human being does when there's nothing else he can do.

Nowadays, of course, just about our only solvent industry is the merchandising of death, bankrolled by our grandchildren.

You realize, of course, that everything I say is horseshit.

Terry Kitchen asked me one time why, since I had so few gifts as a husband and father, I had gotten married. And I heard myself say: "That's the way the post-war movie goes.