If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway... You must be prepared to do some serious turning inward toward the life of the imagination, and that means, I'm afraid, that Geraldo, Keith Obermann, and Jay Leno must go. Reading takes time, and the glass teat takes too much of it.

I enjoy going back and forth between plays and novels. It`s like having a wife and a mistress. Books are the wife; plays, the mistress.

Oh Christ, he groaned to himself, if this is the stuff adults have to think about I never want to grow up

It's as if God gave you something-all those stories- and said, "Here you are. Try not to lose it." But children lose everything unless somebody is there to help them, and if your parents are too stupid to do it, maybe i ought to.

You want to remember that while you're judging the book, the book is also judging you.

My heart's with you, Bill, no matter how it turns out. My heart is with all of them, and I think that, even if we forget each other, we'll remember in our dreams.

Reading a good long novel is in many ways like having a long and satisfying affair