There is probably no heterosexual alive who is not preoccupied with his latent homosexuality.

For 40 years we were led to think of the Russians as godless, materialistic and an evil empire. When the Cold War ended, we suddenly discovered that Russia was a poor Third World country. They had not been equipped to take over the world. In fact, they were just trying to improve a miserable standard of oppressive living, and couldn't. They had to spend too much on arms build-up. We didn't win the Cold War; we bankrupted the Russians. In effect, it was a big bank exhausting the reserves of a smaller one.

The sole virtue of losing your short-term memory is that it does free you to be your own editor.

Simple narcissism gives the power of beasts to politicians, professional wrestlers and female movie stars.

A book of great beauty and manically exquisite insight with a wild and deadly humor . . . The only American novelist who may conceivably be possessed by genius.

It's not a good idea to put your wife into a novel; not your latest wife anyway.

One thing I've learned in all these years is not to make love when you really don't feel it; there's probably nothing worse you can do to yourself than that.