A novel, I think, is partly about the contemporary and partly about the eternal, and it's the balance of that that's difficult to achieve.

If the creative artist worries if he will still be free tomorrow, then he will not be free today.

It may be argued that the past is a country from which we have all emigrated, that its loss is part of our common humanity.

Cruelty is not a literary value.

The Republicans were not always insane. They might've had politics I didn't agree with, but they weren't always actually certifiable.

perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque.

Most American writers don't get asked their opinion on current affairs, whereas in Europe and England, we still do. There are writers here who are the most sophisticated commentators, but they're not asked. Like Don DeLillo, who sort of forecast most of the modern world before it happened.