I came to New York and in only hours, New York did what it does to people: awakened the possibilities. Hope breaks out.

And as he spoke, I was thinking, 'the kind of stories that people turn life into, the kind of lives people turn stories into.

When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it.

Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding?

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.

The book can't compete with the screen. It couldn't compete beginning with the movie screen. It couldn't compete with the television screen and it can't compete with the computer screen I don't think. And now we have all those screens so against all those screens I think the book can't measure up.

Literature got me into this mess and literature is going to have to get me out of it.