I work just as much as I always worked. And I can't explain the fact that there have been a series of books coming rather regularly out of me. I work most days and if you work most days and you get at least a page done a day, then at the end of the year you have 365. So the pages accumulate and then I publish the books.

Oh, to be a center fielder, a center fielder- and nothing more

Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts.

What I would really love to happen to me would be if I came upon an idea that would keep me busy until I die so I wouldn't have to go through the business of thinking up a new book. But I wouldn't mind writing a long book which is going to occupy me for the rest of my life.

There were many hours when I never quite know how I'd gotten there or why I stayed.

I write fiction and I'm told it's autobiography, I write autobiography and I'm told it's fiction, so since I'm so dim and they're so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn't.

When he is sick, every man wants his mother.