Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly when.

Actually we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them--at least I didn't; to phrase them was to invent them and own them.

World War III will be triggered off not by suppressed nationalists seeking political independence, as happened the first time around when the Serbs at Sarajevo shot the heir to the Austrian throne, but by some semiliterate, whacked-out "loner" who lobs a rocket into a nuclear arsenal in order to impress Brooke Shields.

The secret to living in the rush of the world with a minimum of pain is to get as many people as possible to string along with your delusions.

Eventually the writing takes time. What I want to do is get the story down and I want to know what happens as I write my way into the knowledge of the story.

I was a biography in constant motion, memory to the marrow of my bones.

To become a celebrity is to become a brand name. There is Ivory Soap, Rice Krispies, and Philip Roth. Ivory is the soap that floats; Rice Krispies the breakfast cereal that goes snap-crackle-pop; Philip Roth the Jew who masturbates with a piece of liver.