That can happen when people die, the argument with them drops away and people so flawed while they were drawing breath that at times they were all but unbearable now assert themselves in the most appealing way, and what was least to your liking the day before yesterday becomes in the limousine behind the hearse a cause not only for sympathetic amusement but for admiration

Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.

You can't write good satirical fiction in America because reality will quickly outdo anything you might invent.

I think you're a wonder. You're beautiful. You're mature. You are, I admit, vastly more experienced than I am. That's what threw me. I was thrown. Forgive me.

The book really comes to life in the rewriting.

Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing.

People are unjust to anger - it can be enlivening and a lot of fun.