I think J.D. Salinger is correct in granting no interviews, and in making no speeches

My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.

Everything human is alien to me.

Life is a long failure of understanding ... a long, mistaken shutting of the heart.

Each book is, in a sense, an argument with myself, and I would write it, whether it is ever published or not.

One situation – maybe one alone – could drive me to murder: family life, togetherness.

And no book, and possibly no painting, when it is finished, is ever exactly like the first dream of it.

I have Graham Greene's telephone number, but I wouldn't dream of using it. I don't seek out writers because we all want to be alone.

How easy it was to lie when one had to lie!

For neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done or not.

It always gets late with you. - Is that a compliment?

I do not know everything

We weren't raised to take, we were raised to give the shirt off our back to anyone in need.

Art is inherently subversive. It’s destabilizing. It undermines what you already know and what you already think. It is the opposite of propaganda.

A mother's yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man.

The thing about writing in America is that writers in America have an arc. You enter writing as a career, you expect to be successful, and really it's the wrong thing. It's not a profession.

Even if misfortune is only good for bringing a fool to his senses, it would still be just to deem it good for something.

God knows what happens to your time once you have begun to get old. You are busy all the time, you do important things, you work, and yet when you sum it all up the result is nothing.

I love software and I love technology.

I love lean meats like chicken, turkey. I'm obsessed with sushi and fish in general. I eat a lot of veggies and hummus.

It is better not to live at all than to live disgraced.