The 'New York Honk,' as it was called, was the most fashionable accent an American male could have at that time, namely, the spring of 1963. One achieved it by forcing all words out through the nostrils rather than the mouth. It was at once virile... and utterly affected. Nelson Rockefeller had a New York Honk.

If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested.

Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later.

I never forget. I never forgive. I can wait. I find it very easy to harbor a grudge. I have scores to settle.

Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later... that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life. ~Tom Wolfe

I do novels a bit backward. I look for a situation, a milieu first, and then I wait to see who walks into it.

I don't think journalists should talk about whom they're voting for.