The term [Americanization] invokes the transformation of the landscape into unnatural mechanical shapes, of night into day, of speed for its own sake, an irrational passion for novelty at the expense of quality, a worship of gimmickry.

I try very hard to be fair, and I look for ironies. In a way, I live on ironies as a novelist.

There’s only one subject for fiction or poetry or even a joke: how it is. In all the arts, the payoff is always the same: recognition. If it works, you say that’s real, that’s truth, that’s life, that’s the way things are. ‘There it is.’

When rewriting, move quickly. It's a little like cutting your own hair.

Everybody's after a new morning. What do we have to run up and salute tomorrow?

That's the great thing about literature -- it makes the world less lonely.

I was a radioman when I first went into the Navy, so I learned to type by taking Morse code. So I was using the typewriter from day one. My handwriting wasn't any good anyway.