If you deny any affinity with another person or kind of person, if you declare it to be wholly different from yourself

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.

Meeting writers is always so disappointing. I got over wanting to meet live writers quite a long time ago. There is this terrific book that has changed your life, and then you meet the author, and he has shifty eyes and funny shoes and he won't talk about anything except the injustice of the United States income tax structure toward people with fluctuating income, or how to breed Black Angus cows, or something.

To oppose something is to maintain it.

This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.

At the pit's bottom is no anger.

I never knew anybody . . . who found life simple. I think a life or a time looks simple when you leave out the details.