When I was 16, I started publishing all kinds of things in school magazines.

I want, I don’t want. How can one live with such a heart?

I was horrified in high school by the fate of the hanged maids at the end of the Odyssey; it seemed unfair to me, even then.

There were a lot of gods. Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything.

Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody--a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules.

There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté.

If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.