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

Satire is moral outrage transformed into comic art.

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

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

How easy life is when it's easy, and how hard when it's hard.

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.

Eventually the writing takes time. What I want to do is get the story down and I want to know what happens as I write my way into the knowledge of the story.