I'm beginning to feel that the real endangered species on planet earth are not the whales and the elephants but those of us who can laugh at the world and ourselves. ... I fear the dry turn of the American mind, this focus on the literal, as much as I fear our capacity for self-destruction. We've become hagridden by facts, obsessed with product instead of process. Where's the energetic wit, the looney outlook, the frivolity, the lightness of comforting laughter? It has become fashionable to know and unfashionable to feel, and you can't really laugh if you can't feel.

Dying's not so bad. At least I won't have to answer the telephone.

I think of birth as the search for a larger apartment.

Never measure literature by accounting statistics. A quarter of working authors earn less than $1,000.

For you to be successful, sacrifices must be made. It's better that they are made by others but failing that, you'll have to make them yourself.

Trouble is said to be good for an artist's soul but almost never is.

I don't want to die. I think death is a greatly overrated experience.