The true religion of America has always been America.

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.

The horror of the Twentieth Century was the size of each new event, and the paucity of its reverberation.

At bottom, I mean profoundly at bottom, the FBI has nothing to do with Communism, it has nothing to do with catching criminals, it has nothing to do with the Mafia, the syndicate, it has nothing to do with trust-busting, it has nothing to do with interstate commerce, it has nothing to do with anything but serving as a church for the mediocre. A high church for the true mediocre.

When a novel comes, it's a grace. Something in the cosmos has forgiven you long enough so that you can start.

Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego.

The art of the novel is to arrive at that artless point where your characters become more real than yourself.