A writer turns his life into material, and if you’re in his life, he uses yours, too.

I love reference books, especially collections of memorable quotations, almanacs, and atlases. Facts to me are like candy or popcorn - small, tasty delights - and I like to gorge on them now and then.

In the age of networked everything, life moves sideways and covers lots of ground while barely touching the earth.

Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted.

Memo to extreme partisans: If you can't bring yourselves to love your enemies, can you at least learn to hate your friends?

My advice for aspiring writers is go to New York. And if you can’t go to New York, go to the place that represents New York to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people who share your dreams, and where you can talk, talk, talk about your interests. Writing books begins in talking about it, like most human projects, and in being close to those who have already done what you propose to do.

Art, art of any kind, shows that folks are trying.