A writer has to be driven crazy to help him to see. A writer needs his poisons.

How Far back must we go to discover the beginning of trouble?

For a pure sense of being tumultuously alive, you can't beat the nasty side of existence.

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.

I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again.

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.

A Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an army or even a pistol, a Jew clearly without a home, just the object itself, like a glass or an apple.