That afternoon I came to understand that one of the deepest purposes of intellectual sophistication is to provide distance between us and our most disturbing personal truths and gnawing fears.

Who but an English professor would threaten to kill a duck a day and hold up a goose as an example?

Even at its most perceptive, sociology deals in abstractions.

When I look back over my novels what I find is that when I think I'm finished with a theme, I'm generally not. And usually themes will recur from novel to novel in odd, new guises.

I never worry about people not taking my work seriously as a result of the humor. In the end, the comic's best trick is the illusion that comedy is effortless. That people imagine what he's doing is easy is an occupational hazard.

What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?