When I was a child... I was watching a snowstorm, and hopefully asked, 'Momma, do we believe in winter?'

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.

This is what you know about someone you have to hate: he charges you with his crime and castigates himself in you.

You cannot observe people through an ideology. Your ideology observes for you.

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

Nothing lasts and yet nothing passes either, and nothing passes just because nothing lasts.

You go to someone and you think, 'I'll tell him this.' But why? The impulse is that the telling is going to relieve you. And that's why you feel awful later--you've relieved yourself, and if it truly is tragic and awful, it's not better, it's worse---the exhibitionism inherent to a confession has only made the misery worse.