The first thing that distinguishes a writer is that he is most alive when alone.

The Democratic Party represents the American brain, and the Republicans represent not the American heart, or soul, but the American gut. The argument between brain and bowel, everywhere else in the Free World, has been decided long ago in favor of brain. But Americans still - it still divides the nation, this question, here in America.

I say the sentences again and again in my head until they sound right.

The children of the nuclear age, I think, were weakened in their capacity to love. Hard to love, when you're bracing yourself for impact. Hard to love, when the loved one, and the lover, might at any instant become blood and flames, along with everybody else.

Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the gun.

The argument, now, is about whether Bolshevik Russia was 'better' than Nazi Germany. In the days when the New Left dawned, the argument was about whether Bolshevik Russia was better than America.

I think all writers have a bit of genius in them, and a bit of talent. Genius retreats but talent improves.