Everyone who lives in an industrialized society is obliged gradually to give up the past, but in certain countries, such as the United States and Japan, the break with the past has been particularly traumatic.

Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art.

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

All understanding begins with our not accepting the world as it appears.

Everything has changed and nothing is changed.

There is a terrible, mean American resentment toward a writer who tries to do many things.

A good listener: a physical presence that is warm, alert, intelligent - more important than any words.