I suppose everybody does get attached to characters whether in movies or in stories, but I think that's part of the reason you get involved with literature is because there's somebody that grabs you about it and then you want to figure out why.

Writers are not mere copyists of language; they are polishers, embellishers, perfecters. They spend hours getting the timing right so that what they write sounds completely unrehearsed.

I don't think the same curriculum fits every student body.

One of the oddities about responses that you get to what you write, if you get a fair number of them, is that people have very different ideas of what you said.

The job of the critic, as it might have been conceived in the 1950's or 1960's, was some kind of role of moral arbiter for people, not a huge number of people, but people who were, you know, fairly educated, well-placed people.

It’s all in the genes”: an explanation for the way things are that does not threaten the way things are. Why should someone feel unhappy or engage in antisocial behavior when that person is living in the freest and most prosperous nation on earth? It can’t be the system! There must be a flaw in the wiring somewhere.

Public circulation is what renders something a quotation. It's quotable because it's been quoted, and its having been quoted gives it authority.