You can blame Al Gore and you can blame Ralph Nader and you can blame George Bush, but I blame Bill [Clinton]. I just do. I just think he squandered his presidency the night that woman delivered that pizza to him, and if he hadn't, we wouldn't be where we are and there would be a lot of people who are alive today who aren't.

There is something called the rapture of the deep, and it refers to what happens when a deep-sea diver spends too much time at the bottom of the ocean and can't tell which way is up. When he surfaces, he's liable to have a condition called the bends, where the body can't adapt to the oxygen levels in the atmosphere. All of this happens to me when I surface from a great book.

I have for many years been puzzled by the persistence of Hugh Hefner. Why is he still here?

I married him against all evidence. I married him believing that marriage doesn't work, that love dies, that passion fades, and in so doing I became the kind of romantic only a cynic is truly capable of being.

in a socialist country you can get rich by providing necessities, while in a capitalist country you can get rich by providing luxuries.

It had better be quirky or perverse or thoughtful enough so that you hit some chord in them. I mean we've all read pieces where we thought, 'Oh, who gives a damn.'

You can't meet someone until you become what you're becoming.