The act of writing itself is done in secret, like masturbation.

I did a couple of writing seminars in Canada with high school kids. These were the bright kids; they all have computers, but they can't spell. Because spell-check won't [help] you if you don't know through from threw. I told them, "If you can read in the 21st century, you own the world." Because you learn to write from reading.

Every liberal in the country must watch Fox News for one year, and every conservative in the country must watch MSNBC for one year. (Middle-of-the-roaders could stick with CSI)

Even when love isn't enough...somehow it is.

You can see the goldenrod, that most tenacious and pernicious and beauteous of all New England flora, bowing away from the wind like a great and silent congregation.

Everybody wants to psychoanalyze horror. They don't want to psychoanalyze a book like Gay Talese's "Sex with Your Neighbor" [sic] or something like that. It's pretty much accepted that Americans should be interested in who they're diddling and how they're doing it.

If you want to play, you gotta pay.