The trouble with life is its amorphousness, its ridiculous fluidity. Look at it: thinly plotted, largely themeless, sentimental and ineluctably trite. The dialogue is poor, or at least violently uneven. The twists are either predictable or sensationalist. And it’s always the same beginning, and the same ending.

The Uruguayans have a sort of purity. I don't know where they got it, and I doubt even if they know from where they got it. Perhaps they didn't kill off their major population.

Often it doesn't occur to you what kind of novel you're writing until quite late on.

America still is the center of the world, and what happens in the American economy matters everywhere.

Your purpose when driving is not to arrive at your destination safely or quickly. Your purpose when driving is...to impress your personality on the road.

Envy never comes to the ball dressed as envy; it comes dressed as high moral standards or distaste for materialism.

I want incremental improvements. There's the record of all the revolutionary and violent change and extremism in general - it's dreadful.