I am very unmusical. I can't carry a tune. I would never be able to play an instrument.

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

Eyes aren't good liars.

Reached only by boat, seaplane and, with less surety, telephone-this is Fire Island, a pile of sand beneath a pile of people.

I don't care what you do, I just don't want to be a mud hippie like you. [From 1994 woodstock]

You can get it if you really want

The political bug first bit me was Malcolm Fraser's resignation from the Gorton Government.

Gods and wonders always appear, to attend the birth of kings.

many writers believe in arrival without leaving home. They believe in talent but not skill.

I never work from an outline, and often I dont know how the story will end.

Man proposes, but God disposes.

Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.