Quote collection
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"To hear two American men congratulating each other on being heterosexual is one of the most chilling experiences - and unique to the United States. You don't hear two Italians sitting around complimenting each other because they actually like to go to bed with women. The American is hysterical about his manhood."
"It never occurred to any Enlightenment figure in the eighteenth century that law was not preferable to man."
"Love, like a sense of humor, is now claimed by everyone even though Love, like a sense of humor, is rather more rare than not, and to most of us poor muddlers unbearable at full strength."
"It is reasonable to assume that, by and large, what is not read now will not be read, ever. It is also reasonable to assume that practically nothing that is read now will be read later."
"All Americans born between 1890 and 1945 wanted to be movie stars."
"I deny that there's such a thing as a gay person. I deny there's such a thing as a heterosexual person."
"Truman Capote has made lying an art. A minor art."
"Then die. We must all do that. But die, as they say, game."
"I am glad my life is coming to an end. To think that it might last another five hundred years, now that would be terrible, in my case."
"Freud did some serious damage to American literature - a lot of writers began therapy in the 1940s, after which they all became terribly egocentric."
"These are two opposing forces, and whenever I am in active politics, I stop writing. And when I'm writing, I don't politick."
"We've had parallel lives. And frankly, I prefer mine to his. I would not like to be George Bush."
"I was born a writer. When that happens, you have no choice in the matter."
"Many people in the United States happen to believe that United States policy is wrong in Vietnam and the Vietcong are correct in wanting to organize their country in their own way politically. This happens to be pretty much the opinion of western Europe and the other parts of the world."
"I was brought up to believe that what is out-of-doors should stay there and not be encouraged in any way."
"The oligarchs think that the people are both dangerous and stupid. Their point is moot. But we do know that the oligarchs are a good deal more dangerous to the polity than the people at large."
"I spend most of my time in California. I feel I am fueled by rage and by the political climate there. I am angry most of the time when I am there, which might be unbearable for someone else, but for me it's fuel for my writing."
"These little books I write, such as The End of Freedom, about the post-9/11 political climate in the United States, sell in the hundreds of thousands of copies. Whereas, I hear novels on marriage are not selling. This is perhaps not the judgment of God, but it is certainly that of history."
"The Gores, I think, are a bit brighter than the Bushes, historically speaking."
"The Americans only like things they can label, even if it kills them. Think of those poor Latin American writers. Some of them are very good. But the "magical realism" label has absolutely ruined them. The critics are like tourists who return from a trip saying they've "done" Machu Picchu: "Okay, we've done magical realism," so now we can throw it out."