Cynicism makes you feel smart, I know it, even when you aren't smart.

Most things don't stay the way they are very long.

Americans don't have saner gun laws because most Americans, including those citizens who puzzle over better angels, don't want saner gun laws.

Writing never came naturally and I still have to force my hand to do it.

I think that's the thing that memoir can do more than anything it does; it testifies and bears witness to the existence of people whose lives, pleasures and virtues would never have been testified to without my having done it. That makes me really glad.

Our ex-wifes always harbour secrets about us that make them irresistable. Until, of course, we remember who we are and what we did and why we are not married anymore.

In order to write novels for a living - it's not pathological, but I do think and worry and brood and fidget about stuff that I'm working on.