There is truth and then again there is truth. For all that the world is full of people who go around believing they've got you or your neighbor figured out, there really is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.

Satire is moral outrage transformed into comic art.

I don’t ask writers about their work habits. I really don’t care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they’re actually trying to find out, "Is he as crazy as I am?" I don’t need that question answered.

The question to ask about the writer isn't 'Why does he behave so badly?' but 'What does he gain by wearing this mask?

The danger with hatred is, once you start in on it, you get a hundred times more than you bargained for. Once you start, you can't stop.

The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong.

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.