Hip is the sophistication of the wise primitive in a giant jungle.

Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.

Amateurs... venture into scenes that a writer with more experience (and more professional concern) would bypass or eschew altogether.

In my day the library was a wonderful place.... We didn't have visual aids and didn't have various programs...it was a sanctuary.... So I tend to think the library should remain a center of knowledge.

Everything wrong with America led to the point where the country built that tower of Babel, which consequently had to be destroyed. And then came the next shock. We had to realize that the people that did this were brilliant. It showed that the ego we could hold up until September 10 was inadequate.

Writers don't have lifestyles. They just sit in little rooms and write.

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.