Jokes have to be quite naked to be understood. They have to be quite simple.
You say what you have to say. But you have to learn to say it in such a way that the reader can see what you mean.
Words may deeply wound us, but we must run that risk to be free.
What I would really like to have been, given a perfect world, is a jazz pianist. I mean jazz. I don’t mean rock and roll. I mean the never-the-same-twice music the American black people gave the world.
You should be careful about who you pretend to be, because who you pretend to be – is actually who you are!
This is a nation tragedy, of course – that we’ve changed from a society to an audience.
The reason we write fiction is because it’s so much easier to exist spending part of each day in an imaginary world.
A story has to be a good date, because the reader can stop at any time. Remember, readers are selfish and have no compulsion to be decent about anything.
If you would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable.
I beg you to believe the most ridiculous superstition of all: that humanity is at the center of the universe, the fulfiller or frustrateor of the grandest dreams of God Almighty.
Never take liquor into the bedroom. Don’t stick anything in your ears. Be anything but an architect. Live in a nice country rather than a powerful one. Power makes everybody crazy. Get somebody to teach you to play a musical instrument.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but the living room in your fortified compound.
I go on many thrilling adventures and wondrous, profound escapades through books.
What geography can give all Middle Westerners, along with the fresh water and topsoil, if they let it, is awe for an Edenic continent stretching forever in all directions. Makes you religious. Takes your breath away.
The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers.
The hopes and fears of all our years are here with us tonight.
Laughing is good exercise. It’s like jogging on the inside.
I used my daughter’s crayons for each main character. One end of the wallpaper was the beginning of the story, and the other end was the end, and then there was all that middle part, which was the middle.
You can only be funny if you have matters of great importance on your mind.
There is no way a beautiful woman can live up to what she looks like for any appreciable length of time.