Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day.

Culture's worth huge, huge risks. Without culture we're all totalitarian beasts.

God like Us suffers the ambition to make a destiny more extraordinary than was conceived for Him, yes God is like Me, only more so.

The writer can grow as a person or he can shrink. ... His curiosity, his reaction to life must not diminish. The fatal thing is to shrink, to be interested in less, sympathetic to less, desiccating to the point where life itself loses its flavor, and one’s passion for human understanding changes to weariness and distaste.

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.

Alimony is the curse of the writing class.

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