You tasted it. Isn't that enough? Of what do you ever get more than a taste? That's all we're given in life, that's all we're given of life. A taste. There is no more.

Only in America, Rabbi Golden, do these peasants, our mothers, get their hair dyed platinum at the age of sixty, and walk up and down Collins Avenue in Florida in pedalpushers and mink stoles - and with opinions on every subject under the sun. It isn't their fault they were given a gift like speech - look, if cows could talk, they would say things just as idiotic.

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.

I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on.

I wouldn't mind writing a long book which is going to occupy me for the rest of my life.

I'm an Obama supporter. And if you're an Obama supporter that means you had a hard time during the Bush years.

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.