The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.

A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world. That means trying to understand, take in, connect with, what wickedness human beings are capable of; and not be corrupted - made cynical, superficial - by this understanding.

AIDS obliges people to think of sex as having, possibly, the direst consequences: suicide. Or murder.

The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.

I'm more cautious about what I write.

In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.

Enemies are somewhere else, as the fighting is almost always “over there,” with Islamic fundamentalism now replacing Russian and Chinese communism as the implacable, furtive menace. And “terrorist” is a more flexible word than “communist.” It can unify a larger number of quite different struggles and interests. What this may mean is that the war will be endless---since there will always be some terrorism.