Somebody informed me recently that the key to every art, from writing to gardening to sculpture, is creativity. I beg to differ.

Vincent van Gogh's mother painted all of his best things. The famous mailed decapitated ear was a figment of the public relations firm engaged by Van Gogh's dealer.

I do not know what the cat can have eaten. Usually I know exactly what the cat has eaten. Not only have I fed it to the cat, at the cat's insistence, but the cat has thrown it up on the rug, and someone has tracked it all over onto the other rug. I do not know why cats are such habitual vomiters. They do not seem to enjoy it, judging by the sounds they make while they are doing it. It's their nature. A dog is going to bark. A cat is going to vomit.

A good heavy book holds you down. It's an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic.

I studied French in high school and German in college and I once took a 24-hour Italian crash course. English has by far the most words in it of any other language. Our money might not be worth anything anymore, but the language is.

Being president of too many well-meaning organizations put my father into an early grave. The lesson in this was not lost on me.

I think a writer is not an ideal husband... Writers tend to get off into their own heads and not notice the people that they're living with, or they get irritable with the people that they're living with when the people insist on being noticed.