The radical intelligence in the moderate position is the only place where the center holds. Or so it seems.

People have been modeling their lives after films for years, but the medium is somehow unsuited to moral lessons, cautionary tales or polemics of any kind.

Intelligent people, caught at anything, denied it. Faced with evidence of having denied it falsely, people said they had not done it and had not lied about it, and didn't remember it, but if they had done it, or lied about it, they would have done it and misspoken themselves about it in an interest so much higher as to alter the nature of doing and lying altogether.

Being neurotic seemed to be a kind of wild card, an all-purpose explanation.

There are times when every act, no matter how private and unconscious, becomes political.

I think maybe writers come from different planets. I mean, not in any sense as extravagant as Baryshnikov. But there are some writers who understand each other this way and others who understand each other that way. Then there's this great herd, the "herd of independent minds."

Do you realize how angry you sound?” must be one of the most infuriating questions in the language.