I was in New York. Hitchcock was in California. He rang me to make a report on his progress and said, I'm having trouble. I've just sacked my second screenwriter

He liked the fact that Venice had no cars. It made the city human. The streets were like veins, he thought, and the people were the blood, circulating everywhere.

My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.

Life is a long failure of understanding ... a long, mistaken shutting of the heart.

Each book is, in a sense, an argument with myself, and I would write it, whether it is ever published or not.

The conversation seemed just as boring and forgettable as details of American history around 1805, for example.

I think J.D. Salinger is correct in granting no interviews, and in making no speeches