The death of a library, any library, suggests that the community has lost its soul.

Be patient. Your future will come to you and lie down at your feet like a dog who knows and loves you no matter what you are.

I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive.

Hardly anyone in the world is an American

A lot of critics think I'm stupid because my sentences are so simple and my method is so direct: they think these are defects. No. The point is to write as much as you know as quickly as possible.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.