Nothing lasts, you see, not even the thoughts inside you. And you musn't waste your time looking for them. Once a thing is gone, that is the end of it.

The tone of every book is slightly different; there's a music that each has that is distinct from all the others.

I do not repeat conversations that I can't remember. And it's something that irritates me a great deal, because I think most memoirs are false novels.

I still believe we wasted a golden opportunity to make significant changes in our country. I think people in America would have been ready and willing to do it, but the Bush administration took a kind of simplistic, almost moronic approach to it, all because people were so afraid.

People say you have to travel to see the world. Sometimes I think that if you just stay in one place and keep your eyes open, you're going to see just about all that you can handle.

No one can cross the boundary into another -- for the simple reason that no one can gain access to himself

I know that what's happened in the election has changed American reality, and I understand that I have to change with it. I have to rethink how I live my life. I'm not a political essayist; I don't see that I would have any value cranking out articles for newspapers or magazines, because lots of people are doing that already.